First up was Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy. Upon meeting McIlroy, Sachin presented him with a signed Indian cricket shirt and stump, with the World Number Two then offering some golfing tips and a signed DP World Tour Championship pin flag in return.

DP World's global cricket ambassador @sachin_rt met up with @McIlroyRory ahead of his opening round in Dubai ?#DPWTC | @DP_World pic.twitter.com/OA7ZF2Y0Jy

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 16, 2023

Tendulkar, who is the highest run scorer in international cricket, then tested his putting skills with Kiwi Ryan Fox, with some surprising results!

Sachin Tendulkar takes a putting lesson from Ryan Fox… and it works! ?#DPWTC | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/ROvSkkTLWP

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 16, 2023

How’s that for a first attempt!

Image: DP World

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There were plenty of great moments to cherry pick from the ensuing celebrations, but our favorite belongs to Fox who was seen gleefully whispering to caddie Dean Smith during the trophy presentation “We get to go back to August next year.” Indeed you, Ryan. Indeed you do.

"We're going back to Augusta."@ryanfoxgolfer ?#BMWPGA | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/lE7JZyuN4e

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 18, 2023

If you’ve ever wondered if the pros care as much about the Masters as much as you do, this is your reminder. Sure, the $1.4 million pay day was nice, but Fox and Smith were downright giddy about the prospect of teeing it up at Augusta National next season. That tells you everything you need to know about the Augusta aura.

The 2024 Masters will be Fox’s second Masters after qualifying for the first time in 2023. As for Smith, he had one simple request for his player: “Go and win it.”

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You have to laugh. Or at least smile. At the end of a week in which just about every conversation and scrap of speculation revolved around the upcoming Ryder Cup, the winner of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth turned out to be someone who will never play for either side in the biennial transatlantic tussle.

Ryan Fox, a native of New Zealand was the interloper, the 36-year-old Auckland native’s closing 67 good enough to carry him to 18-under 280 and a one-shot victory over a brace of Englishmen, Aaron Rai and Tyrrell Hatton.

It was, as things turned out, an unlikely victory, even if Fox’s track record on the DP World Tour — he finished second behind only Rory McIlroy on the Race to Dubai last year — is one deserving of overall respect. This season, however, wasn’t going nearly so well until a first top-10 of 2023 in last week’s Horizon Irish Open came along after a month-long break at home.

Adding to the long odds against a Fox victory was the fact he got off to the sort of start that usually sends golfers into prolonged tailspins. His tee shot on the par-4 third hole found out-of-bounds right, leading to an eventual triple-bogey 7. Standing on the seventh tee, the burly Kiwi was, at least temporarily, five shots off the pace that was still being set by golf’s new “it” player, newly minted pro and 54-hole leader Ludvig Aberg.

That situation was soon to change. As Aberg went backwards, Fox began accelerating through the field via a string of eight birdies that started on the par-4 sixth, continued despite a nearly hour-and-a-half weather delay and ended on the par-5 18th. The last was achieved after Fox watched Hatton hole a birdie of his own on the home hole to get to 17-under — and despite a poor tee shot that found the rough and forced him to lay-up short of the water fronting the distant green. The wedge from there was pure though, finishing maybe six feet from the cup. In went the putt, a fitting climax to a back-nine 31 that included six of those eight birdies and with no putt longer than 12 feet.

Arguably the most impressive of the birdies came just after the resumption of play, Fox finding himself in the left rough on the par-4 15th hole. He then played this impressive recovery shot.

.@ryanfoxgolfer takes the lead in dramatic fashion ?#BMWPGA | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/zphewrBoNN

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 17, 2023

“I certainly didn’t think I would be talking to anyone about winning after the third hole,” said a breathless Fox. “I don’t really know what to think at the moment. I’ve always struggled a little bit around here. I’ve maybe snuck one top-20 and struggled to make any cuts. To have a back nine like that, especially after how I started the day, it’s amazing. I played great. Pretty much didn’t miss a shot from the third hole onwards and saw a couple of putts go in. It was a pretty cool feeling on the last to know I had one to win and actually make it.”

A little earlier and in as low key a manner as Rory McIlroy shooting a seven-under 65 can ever be, the World No. 2 rounded off his tournament by bouncing on to a leaderboard from which he had previously been conspicuously absent. He left happy enough though. For a man who had to birdie the final hole of his second round to make the cut on the number, a 12-under weekend and a T-7 finish represented a satisfactory send-off to his next competitive outing, the Ryder Cup.

“When you look at the weekend as a whole, it’s a very solid two days of golf,” said McIlroy, who incidentally extended his lead atop the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai. “I said on Friday night that making the cut gave me the opportunity to go out and shoot a couple of good scores and feel a bit better about where my game is. And that’s what I’ve done.”

Still, ever the competitor, McIlroy wasn’t totally satisfied with his final-day efforts. The 5-5 finish (par-par) was especially irritating, the thought having crossed his mind that a 15-under total rather than his 13-under might just have put those in contention under a wee bit of extra pressure. But it wasn’t to be.

“I’m not disappointed that I haven’t won. I’m more disappointed that I couldn’t take advantage of the positions I put myself in on 17 and 18,” he said. “Even if I had birdied those two holes and not won at least I’d have given myself every chance and made the guys out on the course work for it a little more.”

Ludvig Aberg held his first 54-hole lead as a pro at Wentworth, but his Sunday went sideways with a disappointing closing 76. Richard Heathcote

In other news, Aberg turned out to be human after all. Two shots clear with 18 holes to play in only his 10th start as a professional golfer, the 23-year-old Swede stumbled to an error-strewn 76 that lowered him into a T-10 finish. It was, for someone who has cleared every professional hurdle since leaving the amateur ranks in June, a first “failure,” is a top-10 finish in the DP World Tour’s biggest event can be so described.

“A lot of these things I am doing at the moment are things I am doing for the first time,” said Aberg, who will make his Ryder Cup debut for Europe later this month. “This was the first time I was leading a tournament and I felt like I handled it quite well, to be honest. It was quite difficult out there, but I made a few stupid mistakes where I missed on the wrong side and was a little bit too cute with the chips. It cost me today and I’m trying to learn from it. I’m already looking forward to the next time I’m in that same position, although this is going to sting for a long time.”

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Ryan Fox stepped up on Thursday as the obligatory mystery man that tends to pop up on a first-round leaderboard of a major championship — though he shouldn’t be.

By saying he shouldn’t be, we mean that he shouldn’t be a mystery man. After all, the guy is ranked 41st in the world. And, yeah, we also mean he probably shouldn’t be on the leaderboard in the 105th PGA Championship after events of the last month.

But there he was leading the PGA outright at one point before settling for a rather handsome two-under 68 at Oak Hill Country Club, just two behind clubhouse leader Bryson DeChambeau.

A New Zealander, the 36-year-old Fox had spent the previous four weeks at home recovering from pneumonia. He started feeling poorly at the Masters, where he finished T-26 after rounds of 74 and 73 on the weekend. He travelled to Hilton Head but could handle only nine holes at the RBC Heritage four days later before withdrawing. He didn’t find out just how sick he was until he returned to Auckland, where he started a round of antibiotics.

Two weeks later, his second daughter, Margot, was born.

It has been a roller coaster of a spring for @ryanfoxgolfer experiencing the lows and highs of catching pneumonia and then later witnessing the birth of his second child.

Thursday at the #PGAChamp was a high for the New Zealand native.

— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 19, 2023

“So I had a few sleepless nights and not a lot of practice,” he said, not complaining so much as pointing out what had been going on in his life. “One of the days I was supposed to go to practice, Auckland flooded for the third time this year. So I think I drove around Auckland 27 kilometres in four hours in chaos. It wasn’t quite the ideal preparation for a major, but I was kind of hoping the fact I needed a break after a busy start to the year and being mentally fresh would have been important this week.”

He arrived in Chicago from Auckland Sunday evening, flew to New York on Monday and got in 36 holes of practice on the East Course. Still feeling less than 100 per cent and jet-lagged, not to mention sensing some rust on his game, Fox somehow cobbled together a strong opening round to start his fifth PGA appearance, tying his second-lowest round in the championship.

A three-time winner on the DP World Tour, Fox held the outright lead when he converted his fourth birdie at the short par-4 14th hole, holing a 15-footer from off the green after missing the fairway wide right. He gave one back at the 17th after taking four to reach the green but saved bogey from five feet. He needed only 24 putts on the day after hitting only nine greens in regulation.

“I generally like playing the week before a major, and I’ve always been after a decent break always been a little rusty coming back. I did expect that,” he said. “But I also thought this is kind of a golf course you don’t have to shoot 20-under around. If you can shoot around par this week, you’re going to be there or thereabouts. I kind of had that in the back of my head and just go, well, if you make bogeys, it doesn’t really matter. Just limit your mistakes. I managed to hit a few good shots out there and ride a really hot putter. I’m standing here talking to you guys now, so it’s not bad.”

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Arena, the global event solutions and temporary structures group that creates iconic grandstands and hospitality venues for prestigious sports and entertainment occasions, including The Ryder Cup, has signed top tournament professional Ryan Fox as its global golf ambassador.

Fox, 36, was the 2022 winner of the prestigious Seve Ballesteros Award for player of the year on the DP World Tour, in addition to his two Tour victories last year.

The New Zealander — son of All Blacks rugby legend Grant Fox and Ras Al Khaimah inaugural champion — is now fulfilling a lifelong dream to play in the United States, where he has earned playing spots for a series of stellar PGA Tour events, as well as The Masters tournament being played this week at Augusta National Golf Club, the US Open and the PGA Championship.

Fox, who played competitive rugby and cricket at school and didn’t become a professional golfer until he was age 25, is one of the longest hitters in world golf — and one of the most popular characters. He credited his victory at the 2022 Dunhill Links Championship to his great friend and cricketer, the late Shane Warne, his amateur partner at the event for many years.

Paul Berger, CEO of Arena Group, said: “Ryan is not only a world-class, winning tournament golfer, he is a model sports professional and we are proud to welcome him to the Arena Group family as our ambassador. At Arena, we set global standards in what we do — with a focus on innovation, sustainability and detail — and Ryan, in what he has achieved, starting out in New Zealand and Australia, competing in Europe and the Middle East, and now the United States, reflects a constant striving for the highest professional standards, worldwide.”

Paul Berger added: “Golf has been a cornerstone for the Arena business for many years, including working with the PGA Tour, the European Tour Group, the Asian Tour, USPGA and PGA of America — and we remain committed to supporting both the industry, its tournaments and players as the game continues to grow throughout the world.”

Fox, who will wear the Arena logo on his shirt for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, joins a roster of Arena sponsored players that includes Curtis Knipes and Harang Lee.

Fox said: “It is a privilege to join the Arena Group and represent a much-respected global business. As a company, I recognise Arena’s values and its long-term commitment to golf and sustainability. I’ve been fortunate to benefit from the tournaments and events that Arena helps create, and I’m conscious that the fans who have cheered me on at tournaments around the world do so from structures and grandstands constructed by Arena.”

The Arena Group employs over 1,200 personnel in 18 locations worldwide, supplying prestigious sports and entertainment events including Wimbledon, The Open Championship, the US Open, Cheltenham Races, the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, F1 Jeddah, the LET’s Aramco Team Series, the PGA Championship, Hong Kong Sevens and the Hero Dubai Desert Classic.

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The New Zealander had the season of his life in 2022 and the 36-year-old is not letting up as he looks to emulate a breakthrough campaign where he finished runner-up to Rory McIlroy in the DP World Tour season-long Rankings race.

Fox sits two behind the leaders as it stands, and is in a pretty good place, given he won in the UAE at Ras Al Khaimah last season.

“I’ve been fighting it a little bit the last week or so. There were some positive signs this week, but I fought it a lot yesterday,” he said. “I will say that it felt great early on today, I had a couple of good shots and got away with a couple of things. I made an interesting par on hole 4, almost hitting it into the hazard, so I sort of got away with a few bad shots.

“Then I caught fire a little bit on the back nine. I hit some better shots. Got a little lucky a couple times on 13 and 14 and took advantage and probably left a couple out there the last two holes. You feel like you should birdie one of those, 17 or 18. But it’s nice to be back in the mix at least.”

Fox is ready to raise his game again after a stellar 2022, winning the DP WOrld Tour Seve Players’ Players of the Year award for his work.

“To get the Seve award earlier in the week, I would like to say a dream come true but I probably didn’t even think it was that to be honest,” he said. “To join those names on that trophy was amazing and yeah, I’ll certainly be giving it a good crack tomorrow to see if I can get two.”

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The 21-year-old will be joined by 2022 Ras Al Khaimah Classic champion Ryan Fox and twin brother Rasmus for the $2 million DP World Tour event on February 2-5.

RELATED: Ras Al Khaimah Championship returns to DP World Tour schedule
Danish delight as Højgaard claims Ras Al Khaimah title

The Dane battled to his second DP World Tour title at last season’s tournament, winning by four strokes from Jordan Smith as he carded a four-under final round.

As Højgaard wobbled during the last day at Al Hamra, Smith moved two strokes ahead with six to play. But the youngster kept his cool and finished with three birdies and an eagle to seal the famous victory.

The tournament will be the last of the ‘UAE Swing’ series of events at the start of the year. It follows on from the Hero Cup — a new team match play event — and the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and Dubai Desert Classic, the first two Rolex Series events of the 2023 season.

“It’s always nice having the opportunity to defend a title and I’m really looking forward to returning to Al Hamra next year,” said Højgaard. “It was a great final-day battle with Jordan, so to fight back the way I did on the back nine and win by four shots was really satisfying.

“It’s a great venue and the course really suits my eye, so hopefully I can feed off some good memories and have another strong week. It’ll be a great finish to the run of events we have in the UAE at the start of the year.”

Three-time DP World Tour winner Rasmus, Nicolai’s identical twin brother, will be lining up once again alongside compatriot Thomas Bjørn, who famously captained Europe to Ryder Cup victory at Le Golf National in 2018.

New Zealand’s Fox, who won the Ras Al Khaimah Classic as part of a double-header at the venue earlier this year, will be looking for a similar bright start to the season as he went on to have a stellar campaign in 2022 following his triumph in RAK. He finished second to Rory McIlroy on the DP World Tour Rankings.

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Fox, fresh from finishing runner-up to Rory McIlroy in the 2022 season-long rankings, will tee it up at 6am local time and is hopeful of producing some of the form that saw him win twice — at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship — in 2022 and record a further eight top 10 finishes as he moved into the top 50 in the world.

The New Zealander is one of the main contenders following his brilliant season on the DP World Tour and is excited to return to Brisbane for the first of back-to-back Australian events co-sanctioned with the PGA Tour of Australasia — marking the start of another global season that will see the DP World Tour play a minimum of 39 tournaments in 26 different countries.

A six-hour stopover to drop his young family off in Auckland meant that Fox arrived for Wednesday’s pro-am bleary-eyed and with his brain in a different time zone. Yet, such as been his form in 2022, the 35-year-old combined with his amateur partners to win the morning wave by 12 points.

Former world No. 1 Adam Scott has not played on home soil in three years and arrives in Queensland targeting his third Australian PGA Championship title. He first won the event in 2013 — when it was held at Royal Pines — before repeating the feat six years ago, the last time the event was part of the DP World Tour schedule.

Adrian Meronk, the first Polish player to win on the DP World Tour, has made the trip to Australia for the first time since 2017 and he is joined by Danish twins Rasmus and Nicolai Højgaard, having finished tied seventh alongside Rasmus at the season ending DP World Tour Championship last week in Dubai.

“It’s definitely a blur at the moment,” admitted Fox. “Yeah, it still feels a bit surreal. Obviously, it’s not on the goals list to finish in the top 10 on the order of merit, to be honest. After the last couple of years I had where I was probably more trying to keep a card than finish high up.

“I guess the big goal at the start of the year was to get another win and I got that under the belt pretty quickly [at RAK] and that just let everything kind of free roll the rest of the year. You don’t get often in golf where you feel like you can have a free run. You’re always playing to something and after that it was kind of everything else is a bonus and obviously I got myself in contention a bunch more times and to get the win in Dunhill was amazing.

“Arguably there could have been a couple more in there, but it’s pretty tough to win out on any Tour nowadays and to give myself as many chances as I did was great.

“It will probably take a little bit to sink in when I get home, but I think with these two events it kind of doesn’t quite feel like the season’s finished. I know we’re in a new season this year or now, but I think I’ll get a bit more time after the Aussie Open where I can go home and celebrate properly and enjoy some time. I think it will probably sink in a bit better then.

“I’ve tried to take it pretty easy this week, to be honest. The golf game’s in decent shape, so I was just trying to get some rest and I will be straight back to bed after this I think. As I mentioned earlier, six o’clock is a pretty early start tomorrow, but I feel like if I can get some good rest tonight, I should be okay. As I said, the golf game’s still in decent shape after the last couple of weeks, so hopefully I can contend this week.”

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Rory McIlroy
The Northern Irishman has the most wiggle room out of the seven contenders as he tops the DP World Tour Rankings in Partnership with Rolex by just over 128 points. A win or any result where he finishes above all the other challengers will see him lift the Harry Vardon Trophy for the fourth time, while a second-place finish leaves the door open only to Fox, who would then need to win himself.

Ryan Fox
A win will see Fox become the first Kiwi to lift the title and he could, in theory, finish as low as 13th and still take home the season-long prize. A second-placed finish will see him top the Rankings provided he finishes above McIlroy but a finish of third or lower leaves the door open to some of the rest of the chasing pack.

Matt Fitzpatrick
Nothing less than a top two will do for the US Open Champion and even then he will need some help from Fox and McIlroy. If either of the front-runners finish second behind the Englishman, they will still claim season-long glory. If Fitzpatrick himself finishes second, he needs Fox to not win and McIlroy to finish lower than seventh.

Who else is in the hunt?
Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry and Adrian Meronk could also lift the Harry Vardon Trophy on Sunday but they need a win and some help from those above them.
Fleetwood needs McIlroy to finish worse than third and Fox to finish lower than second.
Hovland needs McIlroy to finish worse than fourth and Fox lower than third.
Lowry needs McIlroy to finish worse than seventh, Fox lower than fifth and Fitzpatrick to miss out on a top two.
Meronk needs McIlroy to finish worse than 16th, Fox lower than eighth and Fitzpatrick to not make the top two.

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This time last year, Fox was a relative unknown in the circles of world golf; a journeyman with a handful of minor tour titles to his name. But a whirlwind 2022 has propelled the 35-year-old Kiwi into the spotlight, with victory in the Ras Al Khaimah Classic in February kickstarting a year that has saw him rise from the high 200s to No. 24 in the world.

He is in the form of his life, having also claimed the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland last month and only missing out on the Nedbank Golf Challenge last week by a stroke to Tommy Fleetwood in Sun City.

Now Fox is aiming to make sure his name is known around the globe as he targets a double success at Jumeirah Golf Estates this week in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, with the Rankings title also within reach as he sits second in the standings behind McIlroy.

“It’s all a bit surreal to be honest,” admitted Fox on Wednesday. “If you’d have told me at the start of the year the position I would be in now, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

“But it’s been an amazing season and hopefully I can finish it off this week. But regardless of what happens, I’m really proud of what I’ve done this year. It’s been a fun ride.”

Ryan Fox. DP World Tour

Following his runner-up finish in South Africa last week, the gap to McIlroy is now only 128 points — with 2,000 on offer for this week’s winner. Fox is aware that if he finishes anywhere near the top of the leaderboard ahead of the world No. 1, he could secure one of the most unlikely of crowns in recent golf history.

“I couldn’t have wished for a better week last week but I’m not trying though think about it too much,” Fox said. “Rory is the best player in the world. He’s obviously the favourite, but to be in this position is great and I’ve got nothing to lose this week. I won’t do anything different from what I’ve been doing all year. Just go out and try to beat the golf course and see what happens. That’s served me pretty well and hopefully I can do the same thing this week.”

Fox has been paired with McIlroy for Thursday’s first round as the groups are set depending on the Rankings standings, and the Kiwi is keen to get going alongside the Northern Irishman for the first time in his career.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he added. “To play along with the No. 1 is always special. I’ve heard from plenty of guys on tour that he’s a great guy. There will be nerves. I’m sure we will have pretty big crowd out there which will be nice.

“But that’s what you play golf for. You want to be in those big groups, and it’s cool this year in the fact that I’ve earned the right to be there. I will try to enjoy it as much as I can and hopefully continue the good form. I’ve obviously played in a few decent groups, been in contention a lot this year and handled that pretty well, so hopefully nothing changes in that respect on Thursday.”

New Zealand’s Ryan Fox celebrates his win at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic in February. Getty Images

Fox made an unremarkable start to the 2022 season (61st in Abu Dhabi, 26th in Dubai and a missed cut at the Ras Al Khaimah Championship) before he found something special at the second of the back-to-back events at Al Hamra Golf Club in RAK.

“To be fair, for that missed the cut I was struggling with the back a little bit,” he said. “It just suddenly locked up on me and my physio came out that week. The following week, and I had a little bit of work done by the European Tour physios, and I felt like the game wasn’t too far away. I played relatively well in Dubai [at the Desert Classic] minus a few holes here and there. Obviously something clicked that week and just felt like I got out of my own way really nicely.

“I think I got a lot out of that second week [at the RAK Classic], and coming into that last round with a six-shot lead, all you’re thinking is: ‘Don’t mess it up,’ basically. And to come out of that relatively unscathed and get the win, I think that helped a lot confidence-wise, and was nice to take that into the rest of the season. I felt a whole lot more confident in that situation.”

“To get another win at the Dunhill was amazing and arguably I could have got a couple more as well but it’s pretty hard to win out here. To put myself in that position as many times as I have done this year is pretty cool. Hopefully I can do the same thing again this week.”

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