Professional golfer Ryan Fox, of Beachlands, has been awarded the Seve Ballesteros Award after being voted the DP World Tour’s Player of the Year for 2022.
Fox had a banner season in 2022 with wins at the Ras Al Khai classic in Abu Dhabi (-22 overall) and the Alfred Dunhill Links championship at St Andrews (-15 overall) and finished the year as the 28th ranked golfer in the world.
On top of the Seve Ballesteros award, Fox also received an invitation to one of the most prominent tournaments in golf, the annual Masters tournament, held at the Augusta National Golf Club.
The Masters is one of the four major championships in professional golf and will be held in April this year.
“To qualify for it and get the invite has been one of my biggest goals in golf and I’m excited to get a chance to play it. I have family and some mates coming up for the week so that will make it extra special,” Fox says.
After such a busy schedule last year, Fox was ecstatic to get home for a well-deserved holiday break.
“Mentally and physically, I was very tired at the end of last year and I hadn’t been home since April, so it was great to get home,” he says.
In December, Fox headlined the inaugural ‘Chasing the Fox’ challenge at New Zealand’s Royal Auckland and Grange course in Middlemore, which saw some of New Zealand’s most influential sportspeople and politicians come together and raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“To be able to host an event like that and have so many New Zealand celebs and sportspeople be a part of it was quite humbling. It was a great proof of concept event and we did some great stuff for Make-A-Wish so hopefully last year was just a start,” Fox says.
During the event, former Prime Minister John Key was caught on camera making his first ever hole-in-one before the crowd of famous Kiwis erupted in celebration.
“It was one of the coolest moments I’ve been a part of on course. For John to do it in front of a decent crowd, plus some All Blacks and it being his first hole in one, it’s certainly something none of us that were there will forget,” Fox says.
Fox says the former Prime Minister abided by the unwritten golf rule of buying everyone in the bar a round of drinks afterwards.
“I know John probably had an expensive bar bill afterwards but that was all part of the fun and fair play to him for shouting everyone,” he says.
Fox’s time off appeared to have done him a world of good, breaking the course record at Mangawhai’s Tara Iti golf club with an 11-under-par 61.
As for the new season, Fox is looking to build on his impressive 2022 and remain one of the most competitive golfers in the world.
“I’m going to get to play on the PGA tour a lot more this year so the biggest thing will be to enjoy the new challenges and try to get a PGA tour card going forward. I’d love to win again and to stay in the top 50 too,” Fox says.
He got his season underway at the Dubai Desert Classic on January 26, where he finished in 20th place.
