You could be forgiven for thinking the top echelon of New Zealand’s golfers have, because of their lack of visibility in recent weeks, gone on some sort of strike. Ryan Fox last hit a golf ball in competition 22 days ago. Lydia Ko has played once in the last 5 weeks. The DP World Tour, home for Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori, seems to have gone into some sort of summer hibernation. Thankfully this Tour is about to re-appear on the golfing horizon this week in Scandinavia of

In the 5 seconds it took for Ryan Fox’s ball to roll the 11 feet from his putting blade to the bottom of the hole on the final green at Royal Birkdale, his life changed forever. In the space of those 5 seconds he went from golf hero to folk hero, honoured and praised globally not just for winning probably the most cherished prize in golf, the Open Championship, but also for the way he conquered that final demanding hole, a 473-yard par 4 playing as the most difficult of holes

According to Ryan Fox’s long-time caddie, Dean Smith, “Ryan is probably the fastest golfer in the world”. After his dramatic, come-from-behind win to claim the Open Championship, Foxy can rightly be described now as one of the world’s best golfers as well. Commentators were simply left aghast at the magnificence of Ryan Fox’s win. Words like “unbelievable”, “extraordinary” and “one of the most remarkable victories in the long history of this Championship” were being showered