{"id":265720,"date":"2025-11-06T04:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T04:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/265720\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T04:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T04:06:10","slug":"chasing-the-fox-why-nz-holds-a-special-place-for-golfs-sling-king-mac-boucher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/265720\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Fox: Why NZ holds a special place for golf\u2019s sling king Mac Boucher"},"content":{"rendered":"

But while the control he has over the golf ball is an impressive talent, he says it\u2019s not something he does just for the cameras. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s kind of how I\u2019ve always played. Like, even when I played professionally, it\u2019s just how I play golf. Obviously, there\u2019s certain shots that I like pushing boundaries on it, but nothing I really do is for the camera. It\u2019s all how I did before I was videoing everything I do now. So nothing\u2019s really changed. It\u2019s just something that I\u2019ve always done. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it\u2019d be unique in the space and something that I can kind of set myself apart with, because it\u2019s not like it\u2019s relying on a personality or something like that to gain a bit of a following. It\u2019s more just a skillset that is unique to myself, I find, so definitely it\u2019s nice to have in the pocket for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n

New Zealand holds a special place for Boucher, who worked as a teaching professional at Millbrook for a few years before the Covid-19 pandemic set in and spurred a move back to Canada. For the past few years, he has been a frequent visitor to the country and a participant in the annual M\u0101nuka Phuel Chasing the Fox end-of-year event at Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club. <\/p>\n

Boucher will again return for the 2025 edition, teaming up with Kiwi LIV golf star Ben Campbell<\/a> as they try to best PGA Tour star Ryan Fox and a yet-to-be-named teammate<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cFoxy, he\u2019s one of the nicest dudes in the pro golf scene. He\u2019s just a normal dude, which I really appreciate. Every time I\u2019ve had any type of interaction with him at DP World Tour events or PGA Tour events, he\u2019s always just been such a good guy. So it\u2019s definitely cool to go spend time with him because he is just such a solid guy to shoot the s*** with.\u201d <\/p>\n

Boucher was recently one of 48 golfers to compete in Barstool Sports Internet Invitational, which is being broadcast across six episodes on YouTube. The three episodes released so far have combined for more than 11 million views. <\/p>\n

In the first episode Luke Kwon,<\/a> who grew up in New Zealand, was painted as the villain after sleeping through his alarm, missing his tee time, being handed a four-hole penalty and subsequently drawing the ire of the internet. <\/p>\n

Boucher jumped to Kwon\u2019s defence, and says such fallout comes with the space they work in. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the internet is just, people are always looking for controversy, looking for things to get clicks and engagement and I almost put it as far as saying it\u2019s like engagement farming in the sense that it\u2019s like really dabbling into something to make it a bigger deal to get clicks, because clicks create revenue and that\u2019s just how these companies operate,\u201d Boucher says. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think a lot of the time, being a decent person kind of gets lost in that and for me it\u2019s something that I felt like I had to stick up for, a guy who\u2019s been really good to me and I see all this abuse he\u2019s getting without people actually being there and seeing it first-hand, how it actually kind of played out. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I felt like no other guy that was there was speaking up, so I\u2019m like, you know what, I\u2019m just going to come to his defence a little bit because he doesn\u2019t deserve this type of abuse, really.\u201d <\/p>\n

Returning for Chasing the Fox in on December 12 will be just one of Boucher\u2019s stops in New Zealand: together with Luke Leesburg and Peter Scrimgeour, he will be filming a new series where they spend a couple of weeks travelling the country to see what Kiwi golf courses have to offer. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think just the variety,\u201d Boucher said of what he enjoys most about playing New Zealand courses. \u201c[You] have a little bit of everything with the mountain courses down in the South Island, and you have the ocean courses up in the North Island with like Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs. I would say the variety is my big thing that I love about it. It\u2019s endless, really.\u201d <\/p>\n

M\u0101nuka Phuel Chasing the Fox<\/p>\n

Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club, December 12, 5pm. Tickets are on sale now.<\/p>\n

Confirmed teams<\/p>\n

Team Campbell: Ben Campbell and Mac Boucher.<\/p>\n

Team Media: Dai Henwood, Jeremy Wells and Bryce Casey.<\/p>\n

Team NZ Warriors: Shaun Johnson, Wayde Egan and Chanel Harris-Tavita.<\/p>\n

Team Voke: Nick Voke and Taco Golf.<\/p>\n

Fox and Friend: Ryan Fox and TBC.<\/p>\n

TVNZ1 and TVNZ+ will be broadcasting the event from 7pm-9pm.<\/p>\n

Christopher Reive<\/a> joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But while the control he has over the golf ball is an impressive talent, he says it\u2019s not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[60299,91382,64,63,155310,129779,155311,38935,98636,580,1953,755,155309,155308,155312,7145,1339,1697,5948,12529,64060,8124,85,320,16363,3205],"class_list":["post-265720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-almost","tag-asked","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boucher","tag-chasing","tag-consider","tag-courses","tag-favourite","tag-for","tag-fox","tag-golf","tag-golfs","tag-holds","tag-instantaneously","tag-king","tag-mac","tag-nz","tag-place","tag-responds","tag-sling","tag-special","tag-sports","tag-the","tag-why","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}