SOUTHPORT, England — Ryan Fox has become the new face of playing quickly in a sport that could use a good example.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the best illustration came during the most important moment of his golf life. He had a 12-foot birdie putt to win the Open Championship for his first major, pressure as great as can be found in golf. The 39-year-old Fox took all of 22 seconds to send it on its way.<\/p>\n
He chose his words carefully Sunday evening to make sure he didn’t offend.<\/p>\n
“I need to make sure this comes across right,” Fox said. “It’s not that difficult to pick a shot and pick a club. I get in there, and it all happens quick. It’s always going to be between one or two clubs into a green, and I just see the shot quickly, pick a shot quickly, and the less time I have to think about it, the less bad stuff can creep in there.”<\/p>\n
It was all good Sunday — the perfect drive, the perfect 9-iron, the perfect putt.<\/p>\n
“My routine is quick,” Fox told “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday. “Everything in my head works fast — I see the shot fast, I make the decision fast, my routine is fast. I’m glad I kept that same thing with a chance to win a major. It would have been really easy to get out of that routine. That’s what I’ve done my whole career.<\/p>\n
“The reason I probably started [playing fast] when I first started playing golf when I was a kid with my dad … I remember the first times I’d go to a golf course, my dad’s playing corporate days, charity days, stuff like that; he’s got his 18-year-old tagging along and wanting to play. I’m playing with the big boys at the time. I just want to get out of their way; I don’t want to annoy anyone [and] I’m just real chuffed to be there. I’m like, ‘Hey, let me play. I’ll play real quick. I won’t annoy any of you.’ And that’s just kind of stayed the same way the whole way through [my career].”<\/p>\n
Fox joins a short list of players renowned for fast play during the big-money era — Joe Ogilvie and Bill Haas, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, Lucas Glover and Matt Jones.<\/p>\n
“I’ve done 250 tournaments with him, and it’s never changed,” said Dean Smith, who is Fox’s caddie. “People see it as, like, he’s flying around there, and he is, in a way, but it takes any doubt out.”<\/p>\n
Fox was asked if anyone was quicker than he is, and he mentioned Renato Paratore of Italy.<\/p>\n
“He used to hit while his name was getting announced on the first tee,” Fox said.<\/p>\n
He also shared a story involving Scottie Scheffler, who did not make the list. Fox said they played in a threesome during the WM Phoenix Open.<\/p>\n
“I can’t work out if this was a burn or a compliment,” he said. “We walk off the ninth tee and he goes: ‘Foxy, it doesn’t even feel like you’re in the group. It just feels like we’re playing in a two-ball, you hit so fast.’<\/p>\n
“It’s just always how I’ve played,” Fox said. “I’m kind of glad I kept that routine down the stretch.”<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHPORT, England — Ryan Fox has become the new face of playing quickly in a sport that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-817035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}