TELFER’S TAKE 10.8.26

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 all places with the running of the Danish Open which will hopefully see both Hillier and Kobori teeing it up.

Ryan Fox, after a much-needed spell of rest and recreation following his Open win last month, will be back in business this week with the start of the FedEx Cup play-offs. It starts in Memphis, Tennessee later this week (3 events in all).

Only the top 70 from the 2025-2026 season qualify. Foxy comes into the play-offs in 22^nd place which leaves him ideally placed to advance to the second event next week, when its conclusion field is reduced to just the top 50. At the end of the second event only the top 30 contest the FedEx Cup final.

Now the prize money up for grabs over the next 3 weeks is nothing short of mind-boggling, even by golf standards.

All up US$140million will be won by these 70 players, with the bulk of it going to those 30 final qualifiers. So if Foxy plays with anything like the form he showed at the Open Championship last month, he’ll come home with millions. This is what happens when you win a Major Championship. As Grant Waite once said to me many years ago after he won for the first time on the main USPGA Tour (The Kemper Open 1993): “All sorts of doors open when you become a winner, but basically it means the rich get richer, very very rich.”

I suspect if LIV Golf had not appeared, the money now on offer on the USPGA Tour would be nothing like it is today.  Disliked though he is, the rock stars of the current Tour have much to thank Greg Norman and his fellow Saudi backers for.

Oddly enough, one of the biggest signings LIV made in its early days was that of Brooks Koepka who returned to the PGA Tour at the end of last year. But with only 1 top 10 finish to his name, he failed to make it to inside the Tour’s top 70, so he won’t be playing in the FedEx Cup play-offs. Koepka finished the season in 94^th place. His big problem seems to be his putting, finishing the season ranked the 116^th best putter on tour.

After this latest effort he didn’t have to wait for the golfing media to get stuck into him for his poor form.  He did it himself, saying: “Pathetic and disappointed… I think it’s actually pathetic that I couldn’t get through (to the play-offs). To be in the prime of your career and be as good as I think I am, yeah that’s very pathetic and disappointing. I just need to go home and re-evaluate everything.”

But it’s not all bad news for the 5-time Major winner.

“Overall”, he said, “It’s great to be back… I really love being back, the reception has been great”.