TELFER’S THOUGHTS 21.4.26

Ryan Fox looks to have finally recovered from the travails of kidney stones which have hampered his USPGA Tour campaign for 2026. For over a month he’s been sidelined by these painful little acidic stones. They severely hindered his Masters preparation which led to him playing Augusta below his best form. It didn’t come as any great surprise to see him miss the cut, albeit narrowly.

His tie for 16th place at the Heritage Classic however was a positive sign that he has his mojo back.

The Heritage is known as a Signature event on the US Tour. There are only 8 of them, spread across the entire year. The fields are limited to the top 70 golfers from the previous year and offer US$20 million per tournament. Furthermore, most of those 70 players belong inside the world’s top 50. Yes, the money is good, very good, but so is the competition.

Once you’re in these high-end Signature fields, the dollars mount up very quickly. Foxy, for example, earned around NZ$500,000 for his tie for 16th place at the Heritage.

The addition of these lucrative events to the annual USPGA Tour schedule didn’t come about by accident nor PGA bosses feeling uncommonly generous towards their players. No, it was due entirely to the appearance of LIV Golf and the hundreds of millions of Saudi petro dollars pumped into this new breakaway Tour. Many big names like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryce DeChambeau, Cam Smith and Jon Rahm switched. One could hardly criticise these players for doing so, given the size of the LIV offers - in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars just as signing-on fees, then playing for

much larger purses than were then offered by the USPGA Tour.

The USPGA Tour then unearthed their own bountiful reply, diving into their own reserves and arm- twisting the big sponsors to increase their sponsorship dollars. The arrival of these 20-million-dollar Signature events has clearly gone down well with top PGA Tour players, but not necessarily with many of the couple of hundred lower-ranked players who comprise the bulk of the players on this Tour. “Hey”, they’re saying, “What about us, what sort of remuneration are we getting for our loyalty?”

That issue is yet to be resolved.

Foxy, meanwhile, will be very pleased with this latest overall result.

He certainly started like a man in a hurry. Picking up 5 birdies in his first 9 holes, 4 of them coming on consecutive holes. Sadly he couldn’t match that form on Day 2, having to settle for a 1-over 72 and losing touch with the leaders. Day 3 delivered better stuff - a 5-under 67 and a chance still of a top 20 finish. That would have happened if he had just finished on Sunday with a par on the 18th but he made bogey instead and had to slip back to a tie for 16th .

With the Majors season well underway and the next one in just a few weeks’ time, the PGA Championship, Foxy’s return to form, albeit a little hurried, augurs well for the year’s second Major.