Telfer's Thoughts 28.7.25

In the topsy-turvy world of real estate, the three buzz words “location location location” dominate and define the business. Oddly enough, they also convey a certain significance in the professional world of golf. Players change location every week, from one city to the next and often one continent to the next, but just occasionally during the annual lull, following the completion of the Major golf season, it’s time for “vacation vacation vacation” for most of the game’s leading practitioners.

This is what’s been happening over the past week and our leading golfers are no doubt relishing the downtime.

Ryan Fox, after an energy-sapping but rewarding past couple of months, passed up playing the latest event on the USPGA Tour, as did most of the world’s top 100 players.

Foxy, unlike how he found himself this time last year when he was battling to keep his playing card for 2025, is guaranteed full exemption for the next two years following his two wins in America this year. He is also now ranked highly enough to have safely qualified for the FedEx Cup play-offs which will start in a couple of weeks’ time.

Such is his assured playing status in America for the next couple of years, Ryan’s decided he’s going to travel back to Europe to play in a few of the more highly ranked DP World Tour events because he still has a soft spot for European courses and certain tournaments. He’s also enjoyed a lot of success in Europe prior to his shift to America and given his current good form, more good results could well come his way over the next couple of months.

Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori, the two Kiwis who play the DP World Tour, also have had a week off with no DP World Tour event scheduled after the conclusion of the USPGA.

This tour resumes in Scotland this week with the Nexo Championship at the Trump International Links in Aberdeenshire. Donald Trump is currently in Scotland, so he may make what I suspect will be a contentious appearance at this event.

Meanwhile Lydia Ko, also a little surprisingly, had last week off rather than playing in the Scottish Open, used by all the game’s leading players as a dress rehearsal for the Open Championship which follows the Scottish Open.

This year the Open is at Royal Porthcawl in Wales and Lydia of course is the defending champion. No reason was forthcoming from the Ko camp as to why she missed the Scottish Open.

2025 has been something of a rollercoaster ride for Lydia. She recorded a win in her 3rd start at the World Championship back in February. However, she has only played 11 tournaments so far this year. She hasn’t recorded a top ten finish since March and has missed the cut in her last two tournaments, which means her last four-round tournament was back in mid-June. On the surface it doesn’t look like an ideal build-up for the most important tournament of the year in Women’s golf, the Open Championship.

However, Lydia has always done things her way. She has changed caddies and coaches more than most other women golfers, but she has also, let us not forget, forged a record almost second to none in the modern game. We can only hope she is not carrying an injury into this, her most important event of the year. Despite the ups and downs of her year to date, one thing is for sure, if she brings her A game to Porthcawl, coupled with her fiercely competitive mental game, she will be right in the mix come Monday morning’s final round, I have no doubt about that.