Ryan Fox on His Unique Path to Pro Golf and Playing on the World's Biggest Stages

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:00:05
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.

00:00:06
Speaker 3: In a brid egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Friday Friday fridagg.

00:00:11
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I'm excited we got a top fifty player in the world on the podcast where we have an interview with Ryan fox the New Zealander, the Kiwi who's had a really great run the last couple of years and is playing full time on the PGA Tour this year for the first year. So we talked to Foxy about his travels. Is kind of, you know, a different path into the game of golf. I think is as unique. He didn't really start playing competitively until age eighteen and a lot of other things. So that was a treat that Joseph and I did that interview last week. But first let's do in and out. Joseph, what are you in on?

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Andy?

00:01:25
Speaker 3: This was a little bit of a slow golf week, so I had to stretch for the in and out a little bit, but I'm small thing. I'm in on Live enforcing a pace of play penalty on Adrian moronk. This past weekend comes the same week that the Cognizant Classic or the Honda, depending on how you refer to it, to each of their own kind of newtered to the golf course a little bit, and golfers were taking it super deep, they said. I guess the consensus seems to be with the PGA Tour setup this week that they didn't want guys to have to go through three really tough weeks in a row in Florida. And I don't know how much legitimacy there is to that. That doesn't seem like a great reason to neuter a setup. So I think the same week that Live is enforcing a pace of play penalty, PGA Tour is kind of a soft setup where guys are taking it super deep. Look, competitiveness is going to drive what people want to watch, so I think Live taking a step in that direction. It's not their first pace of play penalty they've enforced, but kind of nice to see competition being preserved a little bit that way, even though I have some other issues with the way Live does competition respect that they're at least enforcing a pace of play.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: I think that's a slippery slope to commend the competition at Live. I agree. I'm a big fan of the pace of play acknowledgment. Acknowledgment that pace of play matters in the game, and that they're at least doing that. I think this is also like the PGA Tour weren't getting their early rounds finished this week because of darkness, and then they had the mishap where they this read the weather report and want two and it led to the tournament finishing on a Monday, which is just like a disaster for any tournament you do not want. And the run that the PGA Tour has been on with these, with these finishes, with the winners being a lot of long shot winners, I think this is this is all kind of like it's just been a kind of a disastrous start to the year for the PGA Tour. But yeah, props props to Live for these these basic play penalty. I think it's their second one that they've they've popped. And another thing, John Rom's basically been on the clock since he joined.

00:03:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean low bar Low bar Andy, but at least commend them for crossing that threshold. I'm not sure how many paces of play. I'm not even sure how many guys have gotten time this year on the PGA Tour, but it's not a lot.

00:03:49
Speaker 1: So what are you went on?

00:03:51
Speaker 2: I am in on this is a little mini trend in the world of golf. But there are some new golf courses private clubs that have a very open and inclusive culture, and I think in America, I think that one of the worst things that's happened with with golf in America is how private so many of the places are. And listen, this is not this is not me taking aim at any private club. That's just kind of the culture that American private golf has been. It's been very exclusive and you know, and I think like one of the things that I am energized about, excited about, is that there are a few new courses that I think will open this year that were our private clubs that will have kind of more of a UK model where if you're an outsider, you can go play these places during the week or you know, during certain times of year. And I really like that. So Broom said a golf course outside of Columbia, South Carolina. Some long time friends of mine are involved in the project. Some guys that I played high school golf against ironically are are a part of the project. And then another guy that I played midam golf with is involved with the project. But their whole premise is going to be a private club that that is open. That is, you know, we have our member times and we have our member days, but we also have open play days where people can come and drive and play the golf course. It's a Kyle Franz course. Also another course in in my neck in the Woods, Brambles, plans to be very open. One of their early policies that I think is so neat is if you caddy in the morning, you are a member the rest of the day.

00:05:48
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:05:49
Speaker 2: So you have like your caddies, you caddy in the morning and then the caddies and the and the members are eating lunch next to each other, you know, and they can go out and play the rest of the day. And I just think like this is this has got to be where we go as a country in terms of our golf culture sharing. Like I think, like one of the you know, I'll just go to my out thing, my out what I'm out on. What I'm out on is clubs that do these twenty million dollar renovations and then they come back and their guest fees are through the roof. And I think about this as a member of a club, like, Okay, if I'm a member of a club, why I join a club? Would want to join a club beyond just like, hey, this is an awesome place for my family. It's an awesome place for me to play golf and make friends with people that play golf. One of the other things about it is like I'd love to share my club with my friend, you know, the people that I like to play golf with, the people that played my entire life golf with. And I just see some of these, some of these renovations and the way they flip the bill for twenty five million dollar renovation which are usually guided towards like we want to host the US Open, and we have to do this, and I just I just wonder about what the direction that if you know, if somebody's sitting there and saying, is this the right direction for golf? That we need to have hydraunics in all this machinery in a golf course, if we want to host a championship, is it really that important?

00:07:37
Speaker 1: You know?

00:07:38
Speaker 2: And the and the thing that happens is then if I'm said member of a club some of these courses that you know, you'll you'll have a you know, three hundred dollars a guest fee or plus, and by the time you add in caddie's lunch, you're looking at like, if I want to bring three friends out, if I want to bring three college buddies out, three high school out, I'm looking at a two thousand dollars day. I just I think it's crazy, But you know what, that's that's the way that things are going. And I am just generally out on that. I'm out on you know, we have to shut down the golf course and do this massive renovation. And I just wonder about like the amount of money being spent.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems kind of similar to some university, Like there'll be a big donation to a university and then instead of lowering tuition, like end up building a couple of buildings and hiring a bunch of people in administrative physicians, and then tuition ends up going up. So I feel like it's kind of a similar thing where like the money, the money that gets invested, hopefully it ends up being a better experience and not a three thousand dollars day to bring some bodies out. So it's good to hear hopefully get to see brambles or and some of the other ones you mentioned. But it seems like a pretty sweet project. I'll pay you back off that then, Andy.

00:08:54
Speaker 1: I'm out on.

00:08:56
Speaker 3: Feeling out of place at a golf course, similar to your talking about and making it more welcoming some of these private courses. But like I've tried to get some friends into the game, and sometimes when they've never been to a driving range before, they feel super uncomfortable and they like they're not supposed to be there. So I think, out on the general judginess that people have at certain private clubs and certain municipal facilities, I'll shout out the butler pitch and putt here in Austin, it's like Austin, Texas. It's like the opposite of that. So very in on making people feel like they're supposed to be at the golf course. I was going to go different direction originally, but I think that's a better message and to focus on amateur golf as opposed to some of the professional golf stuff that I had prepared.

00:09:37
Speaker 4: So it feels like a good message.

00:09:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the place I want to go. Butler Pitch and Putt haven't been yet. Maybe on my next trip to Austin, I will head over there.

00:09:47
Speaker 3: Just throw a golf ball in the in a slider, get in line, and then you're next on the teeth. Very the least pretentious golf course that you'll probably see in Texas.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: Sounds delightful, sounds like my kind of spot.

00:10:00
Speaker 5: Before we get to the Ryan Fox interview, let's talk about Golf, an open, inclusive golf place that I'm going to be visiting this week and into next week.

00:10:11
Speaker 2: I will not be on this podcast next week because of this, but we have an Explorations podcast feed set up for a trip that I am making with some of our team to Northern Ireland. So we're going to be seeing all the great golf courses in Northern Ireland. We will be documenting the trip through our newsletter, blog posts, and then also this Explorations feed social media will have a bunch of visuals and different things up there. But check out this new podcast feed from us Explorations. It's really going to be our kind of like travel podcast feed when we go on trips, mostly probably international, maybe sometimes domestic, big domestic trips. We'll be just doing some like instant reaction. Have some guests talk able about small things. Some haveisodes. It might be ten minutes, some episodes might be thirty minutes. But I'm super excited to go to Northern Ireland. I feel like it is a little bit under talked about in the Greater destination space, but has two of the world's greatest courses in Royal County Town and Port Rush. So we're gonna be seeing all the great courses, immersing ourselves in the culture. And if you are interested in, you know, planning a trip to Northern Ireland, check out Ireland dot com. Slash Golf is obviously a very beautiful part of the world and I can't wait to go. So let's kick it over to Ryan Fox.

00:11:49
Speaker 4: Ryan, thanks for coming on.

00:11:51
Speaker 2: I would I think you've got one of the more interesting backgrounds in professional golf. You didn't really start to think about play golf competitively until you were eighteen. Walk us through what life was before golf was the dominant sport in your life.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: Okay, it was sport for me. So my old man played rugby for the All Blacks. My mom's father played cricket for New Zealand. Two sports you guys don't know very well over here, but they're pretty big sports in New Zealand. So I grew up in a sporting household. Always wanted to play sport, always had a ball of some description. I had clubs as a kid as well, like I used to whack balls around around the backyard. But I would have said cricket was probably one, rugby was two and tennis was three for me growing up. Joined a club at thirteen with my mates, and looking if I look back on it now, golf was probably the one I enjoyed the most. You know, I'd give up doing stuff on a Sunday to go and play golf with my mates. Every school holidays, I'd go and play golf. It just took me a little while to figure that out in my own head. I played like top level schoolboy. Well, I played what they call first eleven and first fifteen at school, which is the top in your school for rugby and cricket. Sort of gave up rugby as I left school. I played a year of men's cricket when I when I left school, and didn't enjoy that as much as I did, you know, playing with my mates at school. And I started a law degree at Auckland University of all things, and got halfway through my first year of that decided I didn't like law anyway, but also was really missing competitive golf or sorry, competitive anything, and thought, well, I love golf, you know, outside of a couple of junior pennant games and the junior comp we had at my home club every year, which I think I probably played until three times, I'd never played any golf tournaments. I thought, well, I play off two, so let's let's get some coaching and see if I can, you know, at least play some tournament golf and do something competitive. And I played my first tournament like June or July, and I was probably five, I think when I was eighteen and going, shit, I love this, and that was kind of that was kind of me. Done golf a little better over a couple of years and made the New Zealand squad as like twenty twenty one year old, and that's when golf sort of I maybe had a chance of it as a career at that point and kind of kept working at it, and you played for New Zealand, played Eisenhower Trophy, played a couple other big things for New Zealand, and then went to Q School and Aussie at the end of twenty eleven. I think it was got my card there, and you know, I played my first pro event at sort of the beginning of twenty twelve as a twenty five year old, So I kind of had a a strange path to golf, but I got there in the end and obs certainly not regretting my decision.

00:15:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have to think that you think back and this was a good decision.

00:15:13
Speaker 2: How would you describe your golf game when you were eighteen and you decided to jump in?

00:15:18
Speaker 1: What was you know?

00:15:19
Speaker 2: I think like we look at most players that are in the top fifty of the world rankings and they have this long pedigree junior career, and there's you know, a few stories I think, like obviously one that people probably would think as similar as Ian Poulter, who famously turned pro as like a four handicap. Describe your golf game when you went and you said you played off of two but what.

00:15:46
Speaker 4: Was the game like?

00:15:49
Speaker 1: If you want one word, it was pretty shit. It was I was the kind of guy round my home course that I could, you know, shoot between seventy and seventy five easy enough, And the course was rated relatively tough off the back tea, so that probably pushed the handicap lower than it should have been if you put me somewhere else that I hadn't played very much or had a fair bit of trouble. If I broke eighty, I was probably pretty toughed. And I'd never had any coaching or anything at that point and didn't really know what I was doing. But went and saw a coach for a couple of months, and I think at that point, just spending some time on the game and not just going out and playing, I got down to scratch pretty quickly. And I think my first first tournament, I think I shot either seventy one seventy one or seventy two seventy one the first two rounds and was running like top ten and I was like, oh, okay, I've got a bit better at that, and then chop the pants off it over the weekend. But those first two rounds were kind of enough to get me, and yeah, I was a ratic off the tee at that point. So like two ie got to work out if there was anything without a bounce pegs or hazards or whatever it was, peg to line up and try not to hit it in the crap. Driver used to go pretty far, but pretty far off line, and thankfully over the years I kind of made driver into a bit more of a weapon than it used to be.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: How do you think playing the rugby and cricket as a kid in all the other sports and not being just you know, I feel like a golf robot like we see so many kids now, How do you think that helped you?

00:17:33
Speaker 1: Probably twofold. I think growing up playing team sports in that regard, like you get cut down pretty quickly if you get too big for your boots. So there was not never any ego, never really any selfishness in it for me. So I think I had a pretty good perspective on sport and what it was like at that point. Obviously growing up in the sporting family, and that regard helped. You know, dad playing at the top level. He cadded for me all the time. That that really I felt like at a sports like growing up. And also I think, you know, goal's a funny game, right, like because the ball doesn't move, it's not as reactive as other sports. And I kind of took that. I kind of took it the other way, like I enjoyed the being creative and reacting and like hitting shots around trees and trying to create shots. I think I got that from the other sports, like you know, rugby and cricket. You just react to whatever comes at you and that's what you do.

00:18:37
Speaker 2: And I.

00:18:39
Speaker 1: Was never a you said, like a golf robot. I was never that. I was always get there and my practice was trying to hit big cuts or smash driver or you know, hit spinners off the off hard pain lines around the chipping green, like doing fun stuff like that. And I think that that trying to make it reactive came from other sports.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: Ryan, So golfers on the spectrum of being heavily technical to being extremely involved with the coach versus you know, you have your Bubba Watson's who infamously really never had any professional instruction. Curious on your journey to getting to where you are now top fifty player in the world, where are you on that spectrum and how technical. Are you with your golf game?

00:19:24
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of technical stuff there. I'm certainly not Bubba, but I'm certainly not I don't want to pick on anyone.

00:19:32
Speaker 4: I'll say David a late nineties David Ledbetter student.

00:19:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm not that.

00:19:38
Speaker 4: I was going to say, like taking pictures of the positions they are.

00:19:42
Speaker 1: I was going to say, like a Billy Horseell and not that. Like you hear Billy talk about his golf swing like he knows like a lot about his own golf swing. I'm sort of not that I know kind of what works for me, but it's form over function in that respect, Like I find if the body moves the right way, I don't particularly care what it looks like. So I've spent a fear bit of time for me. Like I used to hit sort of big hooks growing up, club was behind me. I've always had a really strong grip, so it's kind of I've worked hard on trying to get the club in front of me and feel like I can sort of be on top of it and hit a little fade and that's helped massively with control. But it's not been I want it to look good or I wanted to do this. It's just okay, Well I need the club in front of me just so I've got some control over the face. So it's more been more been a ball flight kind of thing, like if I can, if I if the ball comes out how I want it to come out, then I'm kind of happy no matter what the what the golf swing looks like. Like my golf swing is not technically perfect or even close to it by any stretch, but it works well enough.

00:20:55
Speaker 4: As a as a strong grip player who used to hit a hook.

00:20:58
Speaker 2: And now it made I feel everything you just said, like it is all it's the day could be just told by how the ball is coming out.

00:21:08
Speaker 4: Is it coming out the right window? And if it's coming out the right window, like you feel great?

00:21:13
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And then if you start, if you start hitting fights and I start or trying to hit fights and I stop hooking, it's not a whole lot of fun. You can you can control the fight a little bit, but the hook or the pull hook or the duck hook is pretty hot to control on a golf course.

00:21:28
Speaker 4: When a ball for me starts left, it goes left.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: It is like the worst thing that could possibly happen to anything in my in my golf purview. Yeah, you told me a great story about the first time you broke sixty, and I think it kind of illuminates some of the you know, life of growing up with a with kind of I was, I don't know, you know, I'm very removed from rugby, but a famous, a famous father.

00:21:56
Speaker 4: I thought it it was just a great story. I'd love for you to retell it.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yes, so a little bit of context with dad. So Dad played I would say, the equivalent of like quarterback and rugby, so he was a pretty important player. He also kicked goals like rugby is very different than football in that sense. But he was his zeal And highest point scorer when he retired. He won the World Cup in eighty seven. So dad and Dad was always involved in rugby. So he was, you know, he gets stopped walking down the street for autographs and stuff like that. So he was relatively famous in New Zealand, and I was. I think we were sold as a pair for a charity option, mainly him and I was at that point, I think I was playing for New Zealand, so I was like, okay, you get to play golf for a famous ex all black and someone that can might be able to break part. So this elderly couple had bought it, and I remember straight off the bat, Dad's gone, look, they're not great. You're probably not going to be able to player play off the bat today. Let's just play off the front teas with them and make sure we give them a good day. And at that point I probably hadn't played the front tees at my golf course in years. I'm going, okay, whatever, I just go play. And I think for me, social golf has always been the same. You go out, you head a few shots. If you start playing well, then you start concentrating. If you don't, well, just it doesn't really matter. And it was one of those days. I started hitting it pretty good, and I think I birdied sixteen to get to ten under and then seventeen's are like probably at that time, off the front tees was like a four hundred and sixty yard par five dog leg that you could take the corner on and make it. It was probably four hundred yards in a straight line. I had drive a sandwich in there to like maybe ten feet and roll that in for eagle. So I'm standing on the last tee twelve under, and I've started concentrating pretty hard at that point, not really talking, because you know, fifty nine you don't get a chance shot fifty nine very often, regardless of what tea you're playing off. And the old guy we're playing with, we get to the last tea and he looks at me, goes and go, you must you must be going okay today, and I'm going, yeah, I'm twelve and he goes twelve, I'm twelve under. I need to berdie the last to break sixty, and he goes, oh, okay, Like it was just I don't know if he'd never like he'd probably never seen any decent golf like that before, but there was just no comprehension that that was even possible. When I had a decent I had a bit left up the last which had ob down the right, had it to like a lob. We're so about fifteen foot and then first pump to fifteen foot, all right in front of the clubhouses. It went and for fifty nine, and Dad was very toughed. And I still think to this day the couple we played with had no idea what that actually meant in terms of golf, but it was it was still cool to be able to do it.

00:24:56
Speaker 4: How many more times have you broken sixty' I've.

00:25:00
Speaker 1: Done it one one other time at beaver Brook in the UK, and that's a story in itself. I played with a fifteen handicapper who was getting eighteen off me and played to us six and a seven. That was both their home course, and they took They played me off plus six so they got the full six, so they were off twelve and thirteen for the day. I shot fifty nine, my partner getting eighteen shot eighty and we only won two and one. It was I think.

00:25:31
Speaker 4: It's the greatest match of all time the guys.

00:25:34
Speaker 1: The guys getting twelve and thirteen shot seventy four and seventy five, so I mean it was. It was a perfect day for golf, like no wind, the Penzil cut pretty easy, the greens were perfect. It was one of those rounds where like everyone got hot and we all kind of fed off each other. But it was a yeah, crazy to shoot fifty nine and only just get a win.

00:25:55
Speaker 3: Ryan, It's kind of reminded me of when you were telling that story of into Shamba has talked about some good preparation, potentially for junior players is to not always play the back teas but sometimes play the forward teas and kind of get in the habit of scoring, like going out and making a ton of birdies. Obviously that's just a one off story of where you shot fifty nine. But I'm curious and your ascent to the top ranks of professional golf obviously played all over the world, all types of setups. If you could go back and do things again from maybe advice to a junior golfer, what would be your recommendation. Should you be playing a bunch of different teas, should you be playing the same golf course every day? I mean, obviously you've adapted to a bunch of different playing different types of courses. Yeah, what's your perspective on if somebody was prioritizing playing professional golf, maybe how they should prepare versus the standard play from the back teas every day kind of approach.

00:26:50
Speaker 1: That's a that's a tough question, But for me, I would say everyone's so different, you've got to experiment and find out what works for you and do that. Like, I know that's quite a generic thing to say, but you know, you look at someone like VJ, who you know, was renowned for hitting a thousand balls a day or whatever it is. Like, if you try to copy that, I think most of the time you're going to get sick of it, get burnt out pretty quickly. Like that's but that obviously worked for VJ very very well, like I on the opposite end, like I, for me, I tend to get all my confidence from hitting shots on the golf course and seeing the ball do what I want on the course. Like I can stand on the range for an hour and hit balls and find a feeling. But unless I take that feeling onto the golf course, I don't feel like I've necessarily got a lot. So yeah, as a kid, it's you know, you've got to experiment with lots of different things. I definitely recommend, you know, maybe doing what Bryson said and like scoring is important and not being afraid to shoot low. And if that for you, if that's going forward and giving yourself lots of wedges and lots of birdy chances, then then great. Or if you're one of those guys, or you might have a course that's not that long and the back teas isn't that that hard? You know, get used to hit driver off every tea and try to try to challenge yourself, try to make as many booties as possible. It's just there's so many different ways to do it. There's no right way or wrong way.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: You know.

00:28:34
Speaker 1: It's amazing on tour how many times you see someone get out and then change what they're doing, because I've seen Rory do this, or Tiger do that, or whoever do do something and then sort of or change coaches or whatever and then kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. And if you're good enough to get yourself out on tour like's, you've obviously got to refine some stuff and do whatever. But it doesn't mean reinvent the wheel when you get out there. And I think finding what works for you as a person is probably the most important thing.

00:29:08
Speaker 3: And I think we'll probably get into some of your challenge to our career. Part of what inspired that question. There was a quote from Sammy Valmachi last week about how he thinks that playing on the DP World Tour has prepared him because you play on all these different surfaces and different environments around the world. Curious from your perspective, playing around the world. Have you found that to be true, that maybe you guys are a little bit more adaptable and you're not complaining about a bad lie in the fairway or something because you've played all over the world in a bunch of different surfaces. Curious for your perspective on that.

00:29:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Sammy's definitely right in that regard. I mean, especially if you've gone through Challenge Tour. I went through one Age, or I went through Aussie I kind of got everything. You know, you'd turn up and play some golf courses. I think actually the first, the first golf course I ever played as a pro, and it was a pro am in New Zealand, had the fences up to keep the sheep off the greens. Like like, you know, you go and play that as your first event as a pro, You're like, oh shit, this is almost a fall from grace, you know, from going to you know, I'd played or Western Amateur and Porter Cup and all the big events over here as an amateur and going on playing some great golf course and then go and play that and you're like, oh, kind of puts everything in perspective. And then when you you know, I've been lucky enough to play a few majors and play some amazing golf courses. But then I think when you've gone through a whole system of playing playing in different places, you just kind of get used to whatever comes and like challenged till we used to go and play in Kazakhstan and China and various other places and you know, backcountry courses in Europe which didn't have a huge maintenance budget, So you get used to playing some some interesting condition courses. And while the deep World Tour is certainly not that, you definitely have a lot of variants in terms of the grasses and the style of golf courses we play. You know, we play link golf courses, we play desert golf courses, we play tight, little European old school European courses. We play a lot of big resorts sole courses as well. And that I think you learn how to hit a whole bunch of different shots, and that translates pretty well over here. You know, I feel like, you know, you come over here and a lot of guys have grown up playing really big, really long golf courses and with sometimes not a lot of wind, and all you see is guys just launch it straight up and take everything on And I think that's a learning curve in itself when you come over here as you like I found I'd certainly had to get my flight up quite a bit to stop it on firm greens with tight pins, but also felt like when the conditions didn't quite weren't quite perfect. I also had a whole lot of shots that I could play from playing links golf in various other places around the world. So I think we do become very rounded as golfers playing you know, all over the world on the deeper World Tour, with with your.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: Game being a power player and being someone who hit it a long way from when they decided to turn pro. How have you how did how did you have to evolve your game for those different types of setups like the tighter you talked about, like some shorter, tighter European Tour setups.

00:32:24
Speaker 4: What what do you have to do to adapt to kind of quirk your setups?

00:32:33
Speaker 1: You've just I think for that you've got to have really good sort of course management to be honest, you know you. I remember playing a course in Belgium a couple of years ago that was really firm and fast and lots of dog legs, and you couldn't really take any of the dog legs on because you're you're trying to whack it over the corner of trees and you've got no landing areas and you're standing there and there's a bunch of holes. You just hit and fire like chip five lines off and running it down the fairway. They still prop going like two hundred and forty yards because if there areways a rock hard but like, you definitely don't get that over here. You might get a hole on a golf course where you have to five iron off, but you don't get like I think on that course there was like four or five holes you had a less than a less than a three or a two iron off, and a bunch of holes you'd also had a two iroe off. So you've just got to on courses like that, you've just got to pick the spot where you where where the best place to come in from as and if that happens to me, even a sex or a seven iron off the tee, you've actually just kind of got to have the balls to hit that shot. It's kind of it's kind of weird because you want it as a golfer. You want to get up and slam driver everywhere, but there's definitely some courses that you can't do it, and we played a few of those in Europe. It was also for me getting used to heading driver a lot on courses that otherwise would have intimidated me. Like you know, there are like I felt like, I get in the club in front of me, Like I talked about, with the technical stuff, driver became a bit more of a weapon, and I got a lot better at standing on a hole going well, I could till one off here and hit eight on and or I could if I get a good drive away, I'm going to have a sandwich or a wedge or a lob wedge and go okay, I'm going to I have to trust myself that that is the player and not worry about the trouble. So there's there was a little bit of both. Of course, management on certain cours is important, but also playing professional golf you've got to learn how to take a golf course on. I know that seems like a paradox, but there's a little bit. There's a little bit of both going on.

00:34:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like sometimes the best thing that could happen is to have a fair amount of trouble and you get to a point in your mind where you know, like there's I just have to make a good switch.

00:34:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think when it's tight and there's some trouble, it almost forces your brain like into being really precise and you go, okay, well, especially something like when something I find it when it's really tree lined or something like that, where you got like that gives a really decent perspective on what shot you have to hit and almost gives you a little bit to move it around or something like that. And when you get to that and it's really tight, I find I drive it a whole lot better on a golf course like that than one that's wide open, because you just go I can kind of hit it anywhere, and you end up hitting it anywhere.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. I struggle the most when there's a hazard on one side and I know the other sides wide open and it's like that, I just yeah, then you just end up so far offline.

00:35:40
Speaker 4: It's like, well, I could just make a good swing.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: And if there was you know, trees at the rate instead of wide open, I would just say, oh, I just have to hit a good one and probably hit a good one.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: It's like playing Saint Andrews. San Andrews is a perfect example of that. I mean, every left on any hole bar maybe nine and ten and twelve is perfect, but right is dead on a lot of holes, especially that back nine. It's all ob down the right and it's so hard on some of the holes to force yourself to actually head it down the fairway. But you know, especially when it's set up in an open or something like that, you know, the best chance you've got of making a birdie is to actually take the right side on. I think San Andre's a great golf course like that, but it's such a hard golf course because one side there's no trouble and one side's death basically.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: I think Augusta has some of that too, where it's got enough space where you feel like you can you have places to bail out, but those bailout areas are just dead.

00:36:44
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, Yeah, there's Augusta. There's a lot of places that are dead around Augusta, especially around the greens. You missed it in the wrong place around the greens, and it's like a little uphill and a little bit into the grain and then it runs away from you and it's like running it fourteen or whatever Augusta's supposed to run out. You're like, I've got no shot here. It's just a It's a fun, fun and very tricky place to play golf.

00:37:09
Speaker 3: Ryan, you had a strong debut in your master's debut last year to twenty six and made the cut and off war Majors last year.

00:37:18
Speaker 1: Curious what you're.

00:37:20
Speaker 3: Maybe what about Augusta. Everyone talks about certain things that Augusta surprising you the first time you play it, clearly you were fine. You finished t twenty six.

00:37:28
Speaker 1: It's a very strong debut.

00:37:29
Speaker 3: What were your takeaways from I mean, especially as we look towards the Masters only being like six weeks out, five weeks out, what were your takeaways from playing it for the first time, and how about you approach playing it this year differently.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: I think everyone's going to say this about the how hilly it is straight off the bat. I don't think I've been told it's hilly. And then you get get on that first tee and look down nine. You get on the second team, see how far two goes down, Like you can't believe how much slope there is how much up hill eighteen is. And that's yeah, I think no matter how much you get told how slope it is, you still can't believe how much up and down there is around that place. In terms of going back this year, honestly, I just want to stay healthy. I got pneumonia last year on the weekend and I felt like death warmed up basically, and I honestly, I don't I remember maybe two or three shots from the weekend. I'm normally really good at remembering golf courses and golf shots I've heard, especially like an event like that, and I literally remember heading it to like an inch on sixteen because the crowd went crazy, and that's the only one that really sticks in my mind properly on the weekend, and I was, Yeah, I was in a really bad way for a couple of months after it. I was certainly not going to pull out of the weekend of my first Masters, regardless of I would have crawled around if I had to. But yeah, for this year, I've got my wife and kids going for the first time. My wife was thirty six weeks pregnant last year when we went, so I'm looking forward to the past three comp with them and having a bit of fun and hopefully it can stay healthy and actually kind of just try to enjoy the experience a bit more. Like I think it's so overwhelming the first time when you're there and you're trying to figure out how to play the golf course and trying to figure out the crowds and where everything is, and you feel like you're walking on eggshells. And hopefully second time around it'll be just a bit more enjoyable in that sense, and hopefully that translates into playing a little bit better as well.

00:39:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could only imagine playing with the pneumonia that it's got to be just awful.

00:39:50
Speaker 1: I would recommend it.

00:39:53
Speaker 4: When you're sick. Is there anything that you are trying to do? I imagined with a young kid, this is something that you might be encountering more often if you're anything like me with the young kid, Like I found myself sick a lot. Is there are there?

00:40:09
Speaker 2: How does it compare it to stuff like jet lag? How does it compare to like in what when you know you're not your best? What in terms of health? Is there anything you're trying just to do?

00:40:24
Speaker 1: I think jet lag and sec are a little bit the same, although generally you get you know you're going to get over jet lag a little quicker, but it's it almost gets you out of your own way to an extent because you just you're not really worried about anything else. Like I wasn't worried about where I hit it. Then over the weekend, I just get up and go, I've got to try to hit it here, and at this point I don't really care where it goes. And I certainly didn't play well because I had no energy and stuff, like I had some pretty awful shots. But at that point, I think you're just the main focus is just on getting around, like there's no other I don't think you're trying to necessarily play well or do anything like that. You just you just got to go back into being it it being as simple as possible. You just go, here's my target, here's my shot, here's my club, and just hit it and almost hope that goes where it is supposed to go. And like it takes all this like it takes the stress away from stuff because you always feel like you've got an excuse too. If you feel like shit and you play like shit, you're like, oh, well, I was suck. It's fine, and yeah, that was definitely my weekend at Augusta last year. It was like all I want to do is get around and hopefully just not embarrass myself. And I shot I think I shot three over on the weekend. So it wasn't It wasn't the end of the world by any stretch, and was just pretty tough to have finished in the end, and was very much look looking forward to bed on Sunday night.

00:42:09
Speaker 2: All right, real quick, let's talk about club Champion. I gotta say, I've got this big trip to Northern Ireland. It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be windy, and you know what I'm excited about, Joseph, What's that My clubs are dialed in, I got I am hidden bombs with my driver. I've got the thing optimized so it's like it does not spin. Obviously, when you're playing in the wind, getting the spin off the ball is so so important, especially with the driver, because otherwise you're just you know, if you've got side spin on that ball, it is just going to get amplified and thrown around by the wind. So I'm I'm excited about my setup and the people that have achieved this that have done this for me is are the fine folks at Club Champion. So they have stores across the country. I think basically every major metro area in the country you can go get your clubs fit a Club Champion. They've got I think with between all the different chefs that they carry, all the different heads, there's sixty five thousand possible combos. And what I love about this is like, oftentimes I go in with like an idea in my head about what I want, and what happens is I realized, like, wow, like I just hit these other clubs way better. So if you use the promo code Frida Egg, you go to Club Champion dot com, use the promo code Frida egg, you get fifty percent off your fitting cost with a purchase of a club. That's the promo code Frida Egg fifty percent off. You're fitting your fitting costs with a purchase of a club. This is where I've gone basically my whole life. They started in Chicago. They are great people and they do an awesome, awesome job. So visit Club Chainmpion and let's get back to Ryan Fox.

00:44:10
Speaker 3: Ryan I wanted to get I did want to ask you a little bit about the travel element, because obviously you've played all over the world. You have three week stretches where you're in three different countries, and I feel like in other sports travel has talked about, like the back to back games in professional basketball and what kind of impact that has on an athlete's body. And I've listened to strategies around it, like you want to get in the water or in the sun as quickly as possible when you land to reduce jet lag. Curious what your approach has been to travel. Obviously your your home base in New Zealand, and you're playing a lot of golf internationally, so curious for strategies you have for mitigating jet lag. And also, as we talk about potentially a world tour, how much travel, how much space do you think we need to give the top pro golfers. Is it unreasonable to expect them to travel to a different country week over week? What what does the cadence need to look like for for people to perform at their best.

00:45:08
Speaker 1: I'll answer the second part first. I think if it can be grouped properly, I don't think you need to necessarily space stuff out like it's probably I think for guys too, they wouldn't want to go. Let's say we're going to go to Australia and then go back for two weeks and then go to Asia and then go back. You'd rather go, Okay, well, I'm going to go play Australia and then I'm going to go play maybe one or two in Asia, and then I can go back and have a few weeks off and then well, now we're going to go to Europe and the Middle East or something like that. Do it that way and group them together and like back to back and that's it. Back to back as long as you're not doing like huge long haul on a Sunday night to go on Monday, like you know, the ten twelve hour plus flights like they're they're really hard to deal with on a Sunday night. But you know, Australia to you go playing Thailand or Singapore, like that's a sex our sex our flight depending on where you are, Like you know, if you leave on a Sunday night, get on a Monday morning, have a day off, you know, get going again on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, like you know, with not a lot of time to friends and only a sex our flight, and you know, if guys are doing that at the top end, it's going to be at the front of the plane. Like, I don't think that's too hard to do. I mean, you know, if you're going from I'm going to play in Australia one week, the US the next week, and then I'm going to go play in Europe and then the Middle East the following week. Yeah, that's that's hard. But if you can, if you can kind of group them somewhat together, I think that's that's the way it works. And in terms of dealing with jet lag, for me, I think that the time you fly a time you land makes a massive difference. Like for me, as long as I can stay away from sleeping when I land, like that generally gets me right. Like that you just got to For me, I feel like the first day is going to suck no matter what. Like I've I've done so many twelve hour plus flights out of New Zealand, and you just know, even if you sleep on the plane, like at some point during that first day, you're going to feel like absolute shit and want to go to bed. And if I go to bed at like even have an hour nap at one or two o'clock in the afternoon. That's what ruins me.

00:47:33
Speaker 2: Like.

00:47:35
Speaker 1: You can go if I feel like I can make it to dinner time after I've landed and make it to seven thirty eight o'clock at night, I feel like I'm kind of good at that point. Probably the only caveat to that is if you land like five o'clock in the morning and maybe go and have a little nap, I could. I feel like I can get away with that a little bit. But you know, if I land at eleven o'clock in the morning, there's no way, no matter how bad I feel, I'm going to go have an appo before before dinner, because that'll ruin me for five or six days, Whereas if I suck it up and forel real bad for one day, generally, you know, two or three days, I'm kind of over it. And we did that a lot in Europe. When I first got on tour, I think my first year we had I was in London and we had HSBC in China, so I flew there on a Sunday night and then went back to Turkey, which was a ten hour flight. Then we went to South Africa, which was a ten hour flight. Then we went back to Dubai which was a ten hour flight, and then I had the World Cup of Golf in Australia which was a fourteen hour flight, and then another event in Australia finish. So like my last six other than that, last those last two weeks, like I did not know what way was up and I played awful at the back end of the year for because of that. And you know, I think that's the reason why you if you're going to do a world tour, you can't be all over the place. But if you do group it properly, you know, the Middle East to Europe's kind of a six hour flight, Like you can do that easy enough. And you know that's the according of going from you know, west coast to East coast here kind of thing, So it's not and time difference would be relatively similar to So I think that's very doable for a world tour.

00:49:22
Speaker 2: While we're on the travel subject, what's the most obscure place that you've played golf? And then what's your the favorite your favorite stop or place that you discovered through all the travels between the Australia to her Asian and to her challenge to her days.

00:49:42
Speaker 1: Probably most obscure place would be Kazakhstan. We used to have a challenger of vating Kazakhstan. Play two different golf courses there and they're both great. But I guess when I was coming up playing golf, I didn't think I'd ever go to Kazakhstan to play golf, So that was that was cool.

00:50:00
Speaker 4: What was the off course experience like in Kazakhsa?

00:50:04
Speaker 1: The first time we went was bizarre. We stayed in this old like Soviets era I want to say hotel, but it more felt like it was like a mental institution. Like there were some weird stories of guys having someone come into their room at night and like open the door and like potentially people seeing stuff in straight jackets and other parts of the like. It was all rumors, but it was very weird and it just felt creepy. But the next year we stayed in a decent hotel and it was fine. But that first year were like, this is strange.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: What do you when you go places that are I guess just you know certain parts of the world, are there weeks where it's like you're in your kind of just stay in your hotel room and then are there are other weeks where you're out a lot.

00:50:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean.

00:50:59
Speaker 1: I felt like Europe there's a lot of places where you go out because the culture is so different week to week. Like, you know, I love going to France and Italy, Like the food there is amazing. I love food, so you had to go out and experience all the different restaurants and stuff like that. Dubai's similar in that respect in a different way, Like they've got all the high end, expensive restaurants and you can kind of go eat anything you want there, and there's some local cuisine there too that's really good. But it feels very different, Like and you can go to a little town in France or a little town and Italy like just out of Rome or just out of Paris or whatever, and you've got a local restaurant and the food's great. No one speaks a much. It's just kind of kind of strange. And there's definitely some places, you know, I've been to a few places where there is nothing and you just feel like I'm just going to order a room service every night and not leave the hotel and that could you know, I have done that in France and a couple of places like that too, where you're staying somewhere obscure on challenge tour and you almost feel a bit dodgy going out. Same in Asia. Asia can be hard in places like I love going to Asia as a career Japan, but it can also be overwhelming because it's like no one speaks in the English, you know, you never get English menus places, so you can go to a restaurant and it feels like you just point at something on the menu and hope it's edible. And yeah, there's been a couple of time, like the first couple of times over there, I think it was a bit overwhelming, and I spent a lot of time by myself in hotel rooms.

00:52:41
Speaker 2: And.

00:52:43
Speaker 1: I tried a bit more. My wife started traveling with me in twenty fifteen, and we've definitely tried well before kids to at least go out and experience where we were, where we were staying. And it's kind of gone the other way with kids. You get to five o'clock at night and go, I can't be doing anything. Let's get Uber Eats or let's get room service or whatever. So it's I think there's going to be a fair bit of that in my life this year, just kind of chilling it in the hotel and trying to get some rest.

00:53:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine it's nice when you can get out a little bit. I mean, kids is a different ballgame, but you're you know, it takes your mind off stuff.

00:53:20
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah. Yeah, I think you can get so caught up in golf being everything, like you forget that we're going to some cool places. Like I don't know how many countries I've been to playing golf, but I'm pretty sure in Europe we play like twenty odd different countries every year and go to some really cool places. And like, if you're so caught up in that side of it, you kind of I don't think you get to enjoy it that much. Like at least if like at least if you go out and go out for dinner and get a feel of the town you're in or whatever, at least you feel like you've experienced a little bit of the culture, a little bit of the place. And I think that can just help you get out of your own head. And I'll probably struggle with that in the US a little bit, because you can. For me, I feel like wherever you go in the us. You could eat at the same restaurant, you could stay at the same same hotel in every city you go to, and it can sometimes it could feel a little bit same same. So we're going to try to do a little bit of that this year and actually experience the different places of where we are. You know, go you know in Texas, go to get barbecue and stuff like that. I think you've got to do that or us. It just it becomes too hard.

00:54:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, I imagine with the family too.

00:54:44
Speaker 2: It's like you probably are now Airbnb versus hotel because you've got you've got two little ones and your wife and but that actually I think probably helps a ton with getting out into culture because you can pick airbnbs in you know, do you mind having a longer trip to the to the course if you get to stay somewhere that's a little bit more cultural, Not at all, I.

00:55:08
Speaker 1: Mean, i'd write I'm not a huge fan of staying on site to be honest, Like, I feel like if you're staying on site, that's when it's hard to escape, especially if you have a bad week. You're like, if you feel like you never leave the golf course if you're on site, whereas at least if you're having a bad week and you're staying fifteen twenty minutes away, you like you go at the gates like, oh yeah, I don't have to deal with this still tomorrow now I'm good. So there's definitely going to be a bit of that this year. I'm in one this week in West Palm and it's nice. We've got a pool and can take the kids swimming, and you know, we're fifteen minutes from the golf course, no no traffic around is kind of easy. But it's I think a nice having kids in their own bedrooms because two kids in a hotel rooms and no fun whatsoever.

00:55:52
Speaker 4: And also your bad times, they're a bad time.

00:55:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also having no having cooking facilities a huge too, I think with kids, like it's pretty hard. Kids been used like Chicking team does mac and cheese and fish and chips, Like, I'm not sure that's a that's a good meal every night of the week for a three year old.

00:56:16
Speaker 3: Ryan, You've you've played in two Olympics, and I think as a golf man, it's it's a little bit hard to maybe contextualize exactly where the Olympics sits, and like the intensity of the event, Like how much of a goal that is for players, because obviously it hasn't been back in the Olympics for very long. Can you talk about your experience playing in the Olympics and maybe where that ranks among your personal goals.

00:56:40
Speaker 1: The Olympics is it's it's a weird experience as a golfer. I think, especially it's gonna get better. But the first one I found was really strange because like, I didn't even think it was something I could get into until like a year out, and then I was like, oh, I'm actually an Olympic quoth casion at the moment that'd be quite cool to go to. And it was like, I know, a bunch of guys skipped that first one, and it's a great event to go to. But like I think, if you gave guys a choice still at the moment, do you want to win a major or do you want to win Olympic Gold? Outside of the guys that are probably already won majors, I'd say most golfers, which is a major. But the thing I liked about it more than anything, like growing up playing team sports, You're in part of a team again, and I enjoyed going down to the team room, sitting there and watching all the other sport going on with all the other athletes, and you could get a really good insight on Like you'd watch swimming with the swimmers and they'll be like, oh, yeah, this guy's leading by two links, but his strokes gone. Now he's gassing it, and you're like, he's leading by two links, he's going to win, and you guarantee the guy get overtaken. And like talking to all the other athletes about the other sports was amazing, And then I'd kind of feel bad that, like everyone there was like I, It's like they've trained for four years to get to that point. And I was a challenge to a player at the time, and I was on my way to getting a European Tour card and I'd played an event the week before and was playing an event the week after, and everyone's like, oh, what are you doing. I'm like, I'm going. I can't even remember where I was. I might have been going to Northern Ireland. I was the normal island the week before. I can't remember where I was going the week after, but it was one, Yeah, they're back to Europe somewhere like it was.

00:58:34
Speaker 4: Travel.

00:58:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was like, obviously it was something I wasn't going to miss, but it was it was a like, well, I wouldn't say it was an aside. It was still a huge event to play, but it was. I felt like at the time, trying to get a European Tour card was something I'd worked for for so long that that was almost more important. I felt bad talking to all these other athletes that like it's the absolute clinnicle of their sport and I almost had another goal in mind. And then you throw in two for the Olympics, Like there's three places, right, no one remembers who finished fourth at all, and there's no like there's some world ranking points, but it's not like a Sunday where if you're running thirtieth and you're playing in a huge event, you go, well, if I shoot sixty five on Sunday, at least get a half decent paycheck. Like there's kind of none of that at the Olympics as well. It's like if you if you can't get a medal, it's it was just as it felt like a weird place to be, but it was still like being part of a team playing actually for your country is pretty damn hard to be, especially from my point of view growing up, where playing for your country in rugby cricket was like the absolute clinicle.

00:59:47
Speaker 2: I think that's the tricky thing with almost every professional sport that participates in the Olympics, as you see it with basketball, I mean soccer. I think most soccer players would rather win the World Cup then the Olympics, right, you know, so I think that's the tricky thing about it. That being said, I do it's got to be unbelievable. I'm curious about the interaction with other athletes. Was there a sport that you your appreciation for has grown because of that interaction with their top level athletes the most for.

01:00:26
Speaker 1: The one that impressed me just with their dedication as the rowing, I mean, I don't know if like the the hours they put in, and I mean anyone that's sat on an egg for a wall knows it sucks. And I like the amount of hours they do, like swissing and guessing sitting on one of those things as seriously impressive.

01:00:53
Speaker 2: It's like uncomfortable, it's very physically uncomfortable to cinema of those.

01:00:58
Speaker 1: And like we've got a great record in New Zealand as rollers, we've won a decent amount of Olympic medals and rolling. But yeah, the you talk to them and the drive they have and how much work they put in, like I'd almost feel bad, like I just whack a golf ball around, Like I don't physically exert myself that much. Like, yeah, we walk, you know, it's what it's six or seven miles a day or whatever it is playing golf, and you know, a golf swinger is in the athletic motion, but we're not, yea, our heartbeats, not going at one hundred and eighty for ten minutes like those guys are. It's it's yeah, they were very impressive.

01:01:40
Speaker 4: I think it was fair to say that it was.

01:01:44
Speaker 2: A little I guess, you know, in a way surprising, in a way not surprising given you know the PGA Tour that you weren't on the last President's Cup team. This year you're playing a PGA Tour schedule, which is probably if I had I had to guess one of the one of the reasons you might not Despite being one of the highest ranked international players on the last President's Cup team. How does the President's Cup fit in your like calculus. Obviously it's a busy year with the Olympics, you're in all for majors. Where does it is it kind of just a if I take care of my business, like this is a caret at and where you know you just talked about team sports. Where does the President's Cup kind of fall on your goals and priorities list for this year?

01:02:31
Speaker 1: It's pretty high up for that, Like I feel like it's one if you take care, If you take care of business, it takes care of itself. Like I've always been of that. If I feel like, for me, if I try to do something too much, it becomes like it becomes a focus and you forget about what you're actually trying to do, Like I know that, Like I feel like goals like that should just be in the becky of mind, something that like, yeah, I want to do, but I'm not Tiger in that respect, Like I I feel like it gets in my way a little bit in that respect. So the goal is for me to go out and play as well as I can every week and try to contend and win on the PJ Tour, And if I can do that, then the President's Cup will take care of itself, and like I'd love I would have loved to been a part of the last team, and I probably felt like I did enough to be on that team, but I also left it up to a captain's pick, and I can understand why why Trevor did what he did, And yeah, it's there's a little bit of a source spot there, and you know, there's definitely some motivation to make it this year. And you know, I've had a had a pretty good start when the when the rankings kicked in last year, and you know, those events in Europe that I played well and all counted for the President's Cup, and I haven't had a great start to this year, but hopefully like and find some form in the next few weeks and solidify myself for that team later in the year.

01:04:06
Speaker 3: Ryan, do you feel like since you were sort of a late bloomer to golf, at least playing competitively when you're eighteen, that other guys maybe that grew up playing against each other as juniors, aren't as familiar with your game and like you almost have a little extra something to prove. Does that put a little chip on your shoulder? For example, in the President's Cup? Maybe if they're counting that against you a little bit because they want to get some young guys experience who might be part of that team for decades forward. Like, did you feel like you're being late into the professional golf scene works against you and that's something that you kind of try to overcome or gives you a little bit of an edge.

01:04:47
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think it would have hurt me in that respect, and I I don't have a chip on my shoulder or anything about it. I think it just is what it is. And you know, I've accomplished probably a lot more in the game of golf than I ever thought I would do when I first started, So that's very cool in itself. I think you probably made a good point in the fact that you know, maybe they wanted to blood some younger guys for that team to be be there for many years like I would have. I was thirty five at the time, so you know, regardless, I might only had two or three in me anyway.

01:05:25
Speaker 4: So if you got you late bloomer, you're a classical late bloomer. You got years.

01:05:33
Speaker 1: I thought the bigger thing was probably just me not being part of the PJ tour like it was an easy decision and go, Look, you don't play against these guys week in week out, it's harder to judge you versus some of the guys that do. And I was the one that missed out. You know. It was the same as Adrian moronk missing out on the Ryder Cup last year. Like someone's got to be the poor bustard that misses out, and I happened to be that for the President's Cup, and Adrian was the guy that like that for the Ryder Cup.

01:06:00
Speaker 2: And now he's on Live, you know I'm not. I got to ask a little bit about New Zealand. Obviously one of the most beautiful places in the world. Do you does it make you feel a bit numb when you travel around to the rest of the world, because you know, you know, you go home to, you know, arguably the most beautiful country in the world.

01:06:28
Speaker 1: I certainly don't think of it in that sense, So yeah, probably how I am a bit numb? But ye, the thing I love the most about New Zealand is it's just chilled out like where like I live in Auckland, our biggest city, it's got a million and a half people, Our whole country has got like four and a half million people. It feels the whole country feels like a small town. So that's like I like that in itself. And I love being around the water, so being an island and stuff like that is cool. I love fishing, and we've got some pretty good golf courses down there now as well, so you know, pretty lucky to about to play some of those when I'm home. But I think I've gone so used to traveling for the last like fifteen years. It's I still I don't enjoy the actual travel side of it, but I still enjoy going there all the different places and seeing what, you know, how different it is to back home. And I certainly enjoy being back home, especially with kids. It's being at home with kids is a lot easier than being on the road with kids. But it's like, yeah, it's you've probably got to right. I am a little bit numb to New Zealand. Plus I think when it's your home country, you probably don't go see all the cool stuff. But it's got like I haven't done all our famous hikes, and I don't ski, I don't go into the like into our southern Alps, to go skiing or anything like that, which a lot of the tourists do. I've never done the camper van trip round our South Island, which is what most tourists do and absolutely love it. So I think there's also a little bit of at you kind of take home for granted in that sense, and when I go home, all I want to do is kind of catch up with mates and go up fishing and chill out a little bit.

01:08:07
Speaker 4: What I got to ask you, you're you're actually sponsored by t R I.

01:08:13
Speaker 2: How would you split split ten rounds between the three courses at Terry D and.

01:08:19
Speaker 1: T Oh that's a tough one. I'd say, Well, simply, you'd have to play the meat three times, all right? That that that that that would be because I think if.

01:08:35
Speaker 4: You're very political, very political answer here.

01:08:39
Speaker 1: No, I think if you played them three times, you'd get a feel of how they played in different conditions, like the they're all quite different golf courses, even though don't did two of them, and they are they play very different in the wind versus playing them flat carm and I hope if you played them each three times you kind of get some wind on a couple of days and maybe one day where it was really calm.

01:09:08
Speaker 4: That's a good answer.

01:09:10
Speaker 1: And then I mean, like they're lengths courses, they're on the coast, and it's like they Tara Edie on a Actually all of the golf courses on a good day feel very scorable. On a day where it's blying fifteen to twenty mile an hour, they're pretty tough. And that's what Leng's golf courses are. And then I think for the tenth round for me, I'd go play Tara Edie again because I think that's just phenomenal. But it's pretty it's pretty close.

01:09:38
Speaker 4: What what are a couple other of your favorite courses that you've ever played.

01:09:44
Speaker 1: Around the world. It's pretty much going to be Lenks courses like Port Rush, San Andrew's, Carnousti, I love Golf Nationale and France. That's not Lens course. That's that's a but I think that's a really good golf course. What do you like about it? You've just got to hit shot, like there's no hiding around there at all. You've got to sack up and a shot and if you don't, you get beaten up really really bad. It's like saw Grass is very I think saw Grass is a great golf course too. It's exactly the same. If you hit shots, you can score. If you hit bad shots, just run away with your tail between your legs w D. Yeah.

01:10:27
Speaker 4: Yeah for Wednesday night reach you want.

01:10:33
Speaker 1: A little bit. Yeah, there's and that's I think a good golf course does that. I like Links golf's a little different because if it's so conditioned dependent, like if you play, if you get a good day around a Links golf course, it's probably not that hard. They're designed to play in fifteen mile an hour winds. But like I love that style of golf. You've just got to be so creative to hit to to play those courses.

01:10:57
Speaker 2: All right, And then last question here, if you were going to New Zealand, what would be two or three things that you absolutely have to do?

01:11:10
Speaker 1: Oh beyond that's beyond golf. I'd say you've got to do a bungee jump. So where I think we invented bungee jumping down there called I think it was aj Hackett that did it.

01:11:27
Speaker 4: Got crazy people inventing project.

01:11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got to We've got the first person.

01:11:32
Speaker 2: To bungee jump, Like I'm going to try this out jump us like that's an insane, insane behavior.

01:11:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, We've got a couple down in Queenstown, which is the bottom of the South Island. Ones ones off the cow Our Bridge, which is like seventy meters high and you can get dipped into the river, and another one's called the Nevis and you go out on like a a gondola between two points in the mountain things and it drops like one hundred and forty meters but you're like four hundred meters above the ground, which like I would. I've done one and it's shit scary, but like I did do it and came off and was like I want to do that again, and then sort of settled down for five minutes. I'm like, no, I can pass on that. I'm good. I'd say two you need. Like the traditional thing for New Zealand is to get a camper van and drive around our South Island. And even though I haven't done it, I know a lot of people that have and they highly recommend it. It's like a week or ten day trip driving around and seeing all the spectacular sites, the glaciers and you can look you see both coasts, which the East Coast and West Coast and New Zealand are quite different, so that would be one and three probably going like hike. One of our famous tracks we've got, probably the most famous, is called the Milford Track. It's like, I think it's a three or four day hike through some amazing scenery. Again, that's in the South Island. And if I was going to add a fourth, if you like fishing, we've got some amazing fishing, both trout fishing and sea fishing. So I got to throw that in there.

01:13:21
Speaker 4: Need I need to just go there for like a month.

01:13:24
Speaker 1: You need to go there for golf because we've got probably ten to fifteen golf courses now that are stand up anywhere in the world. Yeah.

01:13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to go there for more than golf. That's the thing, that's what's holding me back. And then you know, then you're just talking the whole family, and.

01:13:42
Speaker 1: It's worth it. You know, enough people down there.

01:13:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. Ryan, Thanks so much for coming on.

01:13:49
Speaker 2: I know, I hope we get a bunch of new fans that you'll be playing down on the Florida Swing.

01:13:55
Speaker 4: You're in the players right.

01:13:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, unless I dropped like ten world ranking prices this week, which hopefully I can't.

01:14:03
Speaker 4: I don't you know, mathematically, I don't know if that's feasible, but uh no.

01:14:08
Speaker 2: Hopefully Yeah, unless there's like a surge of the first ten finishers are all behind you.

01:14:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, well let's let's hope guy. Yeah, So I've got a few weeks in Florida, which.

01:14:25
Speaker 2: All right, big thanks to Ryan uh for all the time.

01:14:29
Speaker 1: Uh it was.

01:14:30
Speaker 2: It was delightful to chat with him.

01:14:32
Speaker 3: He's gonna we'll see Augusta. I'm pretty excited to see what he can do. Good debut last year was interesting to hear him talk about how sick he was on the weekend and not really remembering much of it. So I guess that'll be somebody to for Friday Golf fans to root on in just a couple of weeks.

01:14:47
Speaker 2: Joseph, what is your recommendation this week?

01:14:49
Speaker 3: And I think on this podcast, I'm gonna keep try to keep self Slash Cross promotion to a minimum, but I'm excited about Full Swing and Full Swing thoughts and the exploration. We have two feeds that are going to be hitting. You're getting set up for Friday Golf. If you're between watching Full Swing and not watching Full Swing on Netflix. The pod that uh, just kind of wrapping up recording with Brendan. I think it's going to turn out really well and people are going to enjoy those conversations, So I would recommend it. Feel a little gross recommending our own my own work like that, but I think people are really gonna like it, and I'm super excited to hear what goes up on the Explorations Feed. I don't want to put you on the spot, Andy, but when when can we expect the first Explorations Pod.

01:15:32
Speaker 2: I think the first episode will be up like today, the day you're listening to this, or the day after we just did we already recorded it. It's like basically us just talking about what we're excited about for the trip. So and then we'll be we'll be hitting the feed pretty much like I think probably day two we're there. So the day two, I think the first day we play, first round of golf we play is our glass, so we'll be talking about that. I'll be right after and hanging out in the town. I hear the town is like great, here's like one of the great out and back town to like where you tee off you go out and then you come back into town. So I'm excited about that, and uh, yeah, I'm excited to listen to Full Swing. Thoughts. I might sneak some in on the plane. I might, they might not be out yet, but I'm listening. I've watched a couple episodes of Full Swing. I'm I'm I think it's I think it's a lot better than season one.

01:16:31
Speaker 3: Personally, I'll keep my own I don't say anything until I guess the pod comes out, but yeah, I think there's a lot of content, a lot of audio content coming people's way over the next week or so. So I'm excited about that. What's your recommendation.

01:16:44
Speaker 2: My recommendation it centers around I ran a marathon this weekend. It was crazy. I didn't I didn't have like the ideal training schedule. I got nicked up, and but I think the overarching thing what I really appreciated about it I decided I was going to do this. I think I had probably like a little bit of wanting for some sort of like competitive outlet. I haven't really played competitive golf for a long time now, and it's just something that I don't have the time to do in my life right now, and I think I had just like an appetite for some competition. And I think there's a lot of parallels. And I'm not saying like everybody should go run a marathon, but there's some parallels to running or biking or any of these endure endurance sports to golf where it's on you're you're not able to be satisfied because you can always run faster. Just like in golf, you you can always shoot a lower score, you always walk off around even when you play well, and you're like, you know that that pot on on for if I hadn't missed that shorty, it would have been even better her. So I think just in general, I hadn't really I had run a half marathon ten years ago. I run, I've run, I run a lot in my life, and I just decided to go for it with two months of training. And what I was amazed about is like what you your body is able to do with a little bit of focus in training, because I remember my first long run was like ten miles and I was like at the end of it, I was like gassed.

01:18:35
Speaker 1: I was so tired.

01:18:36
Speaker 2: But then a month into training, it was like sixteen miles was nothing. So yesterday was a total grind. The last eight miles were awful, honestly awful, but it was it was great to finish and there was like a yeah, it was just it was an amazing thing personally to get done. I got to thank my wife for putting up with it, because training for him is no joke. There's there's a lot of time that goes into it. But the nice thing is it's like, you know, depending on what you run, it's like four hours and you're done. It's not like a golf tournament where you're doing all the training, the practicing and then it's like it's a four day event.

01:19:19
Speaker 3: You know, what are the chances you would do another that Andy Johnson has another marathon in his future.

01:19:26
Speaker 1: I don't know.

01:19:26
Speaker 2: I you know, kind of look at I wish, I wish my time was a little bit better time. My first I had my half marathon time was really good. That's what I was kind of shooting for. But then by my leg has been giving me a lot of problems the last month, so I didn't really run much and I really petered off. But I don't know, there's a there's a big sur Marathon, which is around the same time as the one I ran. I ran then app a marathon, but the big surve marathon. You run down Highway one and you go over like the Bixby Bridge, and that one seems like it would be pretty cool to do that would that I found that one after I had signed up for the NAPA one and it was kind of like a that one might be cooler, but it's a little hillier. So if I did another one, I think I'm like kind of more into like where where you go to do it. The course is important because if you're just running on like flat with like nothing around, just like like the more interesting the the Yeah, thenues do matter with a marathon. Yeah, but it was I just think like the idea of like setting a goal, signing up for something and forcing yourself to do it is a is a powerful thing. And I I really enjoyed the whole process of it. And you know, you you it gives you a lot of time to reflect.

01:21:00
Speaker 3: There you go, Yeah, congrats, it was a good time. I don't I don't know if you mentioned it, but you're selling yourself short. You posted it on x and it was an impressive time.

01:21:06
Speaker 2: So respect all right, Well that does it for today's episode. Big thanks to Matt Rusius, who is I think editing this. Meg Atkins I think might have edited the Ryan Fox interview. I'm sorry if Meg didn't and Matt at it at all, but you know, Matt's going to Ireland tomorrow with US, Northern Ireland with US tomorrow. Big thanks to them. And as a reminder, we've got meg Meg stocked up the pro Shot. There's a lot of good stuff. I'm wearing some of it in Northern Ireland spring stuff. It's layers, a bunch of new hats. I think she turned it back to basics, but there's like a lot of just like great staple pieces in there. So whether it's quarter zips, whether it's polos or whether it's hat, a lot of great stuff there pro Shop dot the Friday dot com and we'll be back on Thursday. I think Garris got a good interview cuted up for Thursday.