[Photo: Getty images]
Ryan Fox hopes his breakthrough PGA Tour win opens the floodgates for his career in the US after a similar springboard happened on the European circuit in 2022.
Fox secured his maiden PGA Tour win with a dramatic walk-off birdie from a chip-in that ended Monday’s (AEST) three-way playoff at the Myrtle Beach Classic. Fox won the opposite field event — held concurrently against the PGA Tour Signature event at the Truist Championship — by chipping in from off the green at the first playoff hole to defeat Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes and American Harry Higgs.
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The victory gave Fox entry into this week’s second major of the year, the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, and came with a two-year PGA Tour exemption and a $US1.1 million ($A1.7 million) winner’s prize.
At 38, Fox became the oldest first-time winner of a PGA Tour event since Ryan Armour won at Sanderson Farms in 2017 at 41.
Fox had four career victories on the DP World Tour, but struggled on the PGA Tour since transitioning to the US circuit in 2023. In February of 2022, Fox won the Ras Al Khaimah Classic on the DP World Tour and set up an incredible run of hot finishes around Europe that included winning the 2022 Dunhill Links at St Andrews later that year and the flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in 2023. He hopes he gets a similar boost from capturing his first PGA Tour victory.
“Yeah, definitely. I kind of had a similar thing happen in ’22,” Fox said. “I had had a couple of tricky years through COVID and won in Ras Al Khaimah, and that took all the pressure off. I had a really great year after that. So certainly hoping the same thing happens this year, but in this game you don’t get to win very often. You don’t get job security very often either, so that’s certainly nice to have that in the back of my mind and can feel like for the rest of the year I can kind of freewheel it a little bit. Hopefully that takes some pressure off.”