Ryan Fox has had his best result on the European Tour for the year after tying for 4th in the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters in Sotogrande Spain but is now likely to only play one more event before having to fly back to New Zealand in an effort to get back into the country before Christmas.
Fox tied with English trio Laurie Canter, James Morrison and Robert Rock, Swede Alexander Björk, American David Lipsky and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti to finish at 2-under for the tournament that was won by Matt Fitzpatrick who produced a brilliant, nerveless final round of 69 to finish on 6-under, winning by three.
Before this weekend, the best performance on the tour this year was tied for 6th place at the Saudi International in February.
After securing his Tour card for 2022 a few weeks ago, Fox said it’s nice to be able to finish off with one more tournament before heading home.
“It was nice to secure a job for next year a couple of weeks ago and then the higher up the order of merit I finish the better as there are a couple of shorter field events next year that I’ll hopefully get into,” Fox explained to RNZ.
“So it was nice to help that today and one more week in Mallorca to hopefully finish off my season on a high.
View this post on Instagram
“It’s been a frustrating year off the golf course and that’s probably not helped me play well on the golf course.
“But the two things of having enough points (to secure his tour card for next year) and securing an MIQ spot for the end of the year kind of took the pressure off.
“It’s amazing how much that frees you up on the golf course and it’s been nice the last couple of weeks to be a bit more care-free and it’s certainly shown in how I’ve played and how I’ve scored.”
Fox has said that if the New Zealand Government change the MIQ situation this week then he would consider staying around for the season-ending tournament in Dubai if he qualified.
“The ideal scenario would be to try and play my way into Dubai as we’ve still got three events so if something does happen to change then we’ll try to stay on but I’m definitely not holding out hope.”
Fox has risen to 74 in the European Tour rankings with the top 60 qualifying for the season-ending tournament.
