New Zealand’s Ryan Fox is having a tremendous time on the DP World Tour so far this season — and now he is aiming to cap a hectic ‘UAE Swing’ with victory at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic.
Two weeks ago, the Kiwi golfer received the biggest cheer of the day when he sunk a hole-in-one during the third round of the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club.
And on Thursday, Fox equalled the course record at Al Hamra Golf Club to lead by two after the first round of the RAK Classic — the fourth event in the UAE in four weeks on the DP World Tour. The 35-year-old has played them all, finishing tied 73rd in the Ras Al Khaimah Championship last week, 61st in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Yas Links either side of an impressive 27th in Dubai.
But if he can keep up the form he showed on Thursday, he could crown all the hard work put in over the past month with his second DP World Tour title, following triumph at the Perth International in 2019.
Fox was actually on target for breaking the course record at Al Hamra — set last week by Adrian Otaegui — until he suffered his only bogey on the 17th. He is two clear of Portugal’s Ricardo Gouveia, with a bunch of nine players chasing, one stroke back — including Scottish pair Robert MacIntyre and David Drysdale, and Dubai Desert Classic runner-up Richard Bland.
“I’m very happy,” Fox said. “My bunker play was really solid all day. I took advantage of that and it was nice to see some putts go in as well.
“I really enjoyed it, it’s the first time I’ve shot nine under out here on this Tour. I’ve shot some pretty low scores at home but struggled to bring that out here at times. It was nice to get in the zone, I just felt like I had control of the golf ball.
“I probably need to throw a couple of thanks out too, I struggled last week here with my back and I have my physio out here, and the Tour physio has helped me out over the weekend and I feel 100 per cent this week which was nice. Shaun Norris also was nice enough to give me a putting tip on Tuesday when we played a practice round together.
“It’s pretty generous off the tee. I think I hit driver everywhere bar the tenth. I drove it really solid apart from the ninth hole, and I can get to all the par fives in two. I think there are three holes which are, depending on the win, pretty close to drivable 13, one and five.
“I just need to try to keep doing what I’m doing. I worked hard today on just focusing on every shot, obviously my body felt a bit better today than last week, felt like I could do what I wanted to do and I wasn’t fighting it so hopefully I wake up tomorrow feeling good and I can keep doing what I’m doing.”
Gouveia added: It was a great round, I played solid. I put the ball in play which was what didn’t happen last week, so if you do that you can create a lot of chances and I holed a lot of putts which helped.
“Mostly, my putting and driving wasn’t good last week so I had some time to fix that after missing the cut last week, and it paid off today.”
Leaderboard
Ryan FOX (NZL) -9
Ricardo GOUVEIA (POR) -7
Sebastian SODERBERG (SWE) -6
David DRYSDALE (SCO) -6
Robert MACINTYRE (SCO) -6
Jason SCRIVENER (AUS) -6
Joost LUITEN (NED) -6
Yannik PAUL (GER) -6
Francesco LAPORTA (ITA)
Andrew WILSON (ENG) -6
Richard BLAND (ENG) -6
