{"id":369638,"date":"2026-04-08T14:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/369638\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:24:11","slug":"masters-2026-ryan-fox-on-return-from-kidney-stones-and-augusta-intricacies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/369638\/","title":{"rendered":"Masters 2026: Ryan Fox on return from kidney stones and Augusta intricacies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI definitely felt rustier coming back. I hadn\u2019t touched a golf club in 10 days there and I hadn\u2019t probably done very much work in the lead-up,\u201d Fox told the Herald. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the main goal was to just get back on the course and have a hit-out and get those tournament feels flowing again, and I certainly didn\u2019t want those tournament feels [of the] first game back being Thursday of Augusta. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, it was nice to get those out of the system.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fox had always planned on skipping last week\u2019s Valero Texas Open in San Antonio. However, he said he might have considered playing it had he not been able to return in Houston the week prior, for the sake of a pre-Masters<\/a> hit out. <\/p>\n

TPC San Antonio has not been a course Fox has navigated well historically \u2013 missing the cut in the 2024 and 2025 editions of the tournament \u2013 and he felt like it would be a tournament that would do more harm than good for his confidence. <\/p>\n

After missing out on the Masters last year, Fox returns looking to fall back into the form that saw him start the season with four top 25-finishes \u2013 including a T7 at the Genesis Invitational.<\/p>\n

Fox has played reasonably well at Augusta in previous visits, with a top 40 finish in 2024 and a top 30 finish in 2023. <\/p>\n

\u201c[I\u2019m] pretty excited to be back this year … and getting to soak in that whole experience. I think as a golf tournament, the feel of it stands above the rest,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s more how they do it. Like, it\u2019s very old school with the no phones and all the little rules that I\u2019m sure everyone that\u2019s followed the Masters has read up about. The no running, and you can put your seat anywhere and you can just sit there and it\u2019s just a very different crowd than what we get every other week on tour. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously playing in the UK\u2019s a bit different than playing in the US and the crowds over there are great, but there\u2019s just something about the Masters crowd and the Masters experience that\u2019s just amazing.\u201d <\/p>\n

While he wasn\u2019t in last year\u2019s field, Fox estimated he watched most of the tournament, which was ultimately won by Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, to complete his career grand slam. <\/p>\n

Asked if he learnt anything about how to approach certain parts of the course by watching the tournament, and how others played certain shots, Fox said there was only one real way to learn the intricacies of Augusta. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe not from watching it, but definitely from playing it. It\u2019s kind of a funny experience playing there because there\u2019s so many little intricacies to it that when you play it, it doesn\u2019t change much at all year to year. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike, maybe they redo a green or two, or sneak another tee box in, they don\u2019t really tell you what they\u2019re doing, but for the most part, it\u2019s the same golf course every year,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut every time you play it, you feel like you learn something new and go, \u2018well I don\u2019t want to be there\u2019, \u2018actually that\u2019s a pretty good miss to that pin\u2019, \u2018that\u2019s not too bad\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just so much of that and I think no matter how many times you play it, you\u2019re always going to learn something about the golf course.\u201d <\/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":"\u201cI definitely felt rustier coming back. I hadn\u2019t touched a golf club in 10 days there and I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,95,121016,42833,67138,4131,71,14774,2255,58253,111,139,69,90,1527,13382,5128,108267,213,28724,180389],"class_list":{"0":"post-369638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-augusta","11":"tag-avoided","12":"tag-bout","13":"tag-fox","14":"tag-from","15":"tag-intricacies","16":"tag-kidney","17":"tag-masters","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-on","22":"tag-return","23":"tag-returning","24":"tag-ryan","25":"tag-scenario","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-stones","28":"tag-worstcase"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}