Ryan Fox’s first golf club was built by his grandfather from a couple of pieces of bamboo and some wooden blocks. Three decades later, Fox hoisted the Claret Jug at Royal Birkdale after a 12-foot birdie on the 72nd hole. He became the second New Zealander to win The Open in 63 years. His journey from swinging a handmade bamboo club to winning a major has been unlike most in golf.

Ryan Fox’s Upbringing & Early Life

Ryan Fox grew up in a New Zealand household that had already produced two national sport icons before he ever picked up a golf club. His father, Grant Fox, is one of the great goal-kickers in All Blacks history. He carved a remarkable legacy in the sport, being famously credited for helping New Zealand win the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987. Besides playing 46 test matches, he still sits fourth on the country’s all-time scoring list with 645 points.

If that wasn’t a big influence, Ryan Fox had more impetus from his maternal side. His maternal grandfather, Merv Wallace, captained New Zealand’s cricket team and coached the side to its first-ever test win over the West Indies in 1956.

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Despite that, Ryan Fox shared that none of that pedigree translated into pressure growing up. Speaking on the Life on Tour podcast in 2022, he explained that his earliest memories were of Wallace bowling to him in the backyard, teaching him to read spin-off in the bowler’s hand before he was even five years old.

“Both my granddad and my dad were very supportive of whatever I did. But obviously with that background, I was always going to grow up with sport in my life,” Fox said.

And he does, more so with a sportsman’s spirit. Interestingly, neither cricket nor rugby ever caught his interest to play professionally. As for golf, Fox didn’t pick up a golf club until he was 10 years old. And even then, it came through cricket rather than any push from his father.

In a DP World Tour player blog in 2017, Fox recalls that his first ever round came in Auckland alongside his father and a trio of visiting cricket royalty. That included Ian Botham, Martin Crowe, and Mark Nicholas.

And that’s how he was eventually introduced to the game. The honor was done by his grandfather as he carved him his first set of clubs out of wood soon after. Needless to say, Fox was hooked on the sport immediately. He gave up weekends and school parties alike to spend time on the course instead.

Choosing Golf & Amateur Life

Ryan Fox shares it wasn’t a smooth road altogether. He briefly played rugby through school and in the same fly-half position his father once wore, but walked away from the sport once he started having too many concussions.

With no clear sporting path in his mind, he followed his parents’ advice and enrolled in the University of Auckland to study law. It was a decision that they framed as giving him “something to fall back” on if a career in sport never materialized.

It was only at the university that he started looking for and missing the organized sport like golf. Fox shares that a couple of months without competitive sport left him restless. So midway through his first career, he sought a private coach on his own. He found an Auckland-based instructor, Marcus Wheelhouse, rather than joining any college team or academy program. And soon after, he was up to playing competitive golf in no time.

“I absolutely loved it. And that was me from there,” he stated. “I wanted to play as much as possible.”

In a spin of events, Fox eventually walked away from law entirely, finishing his university in 2019 with an arts degree instead.

A Long Wait for a PGA Tour Win

Ryan Fox turned professional at 25 and started his career on the Australian Tour in 2012. His journey was far from linear. In 2013, he almost thought of quitting the sport altogether. However, advice from his father stuck with him. He told him to simply enjoy the game during an Australian Masters week to keep his card alive.

After two years on the Challenge Tour, including a heartbreaking miss of his European Tour card by a single place in 2015, he eventually landed a breakthrough on the DP World Tour in 2017. He made his maiden win at the World Super 6 in Perth in 2019.

After 2019, Ryan Fox fell into a winless slump. He didn’t win on the PGA Tour until last year in May at the ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic. Speaking to the media, he expressed how difficult the stretch was. “I haven’t transitioned probably as well as I would have liked over to the PGA Tour. It was a tough year last year. I managed just to keep my card.”

The win was especially notable as it fell on Mother’s Day, and Fox revealed his wife had only half-jokingly asked for a trophy as her gift that weekend. By then, Fox was already 38 and had built a genuinely global resume. He had wins on the DP World Tour at the Ras Al Khaimah Classic and Dunhill Links at St. Andrews in 2022. Moreover, he has credited St. Andrews’ win in particular as validation, later saying the run of results cemented him inside the world’s top 50 and opened the doors to bigger events, including the Masters.

2025 was seemingly Fox’s year, as he followed his Myrtle Beach breakthrough with a second PGA Tour win less than a month later. He lifted the trophy at the 2025 RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto, beating Sam Burns after both players finished 72 holes tied at 18 under. The winning blow came on the fourth playoff hole, a 3-wood struck to 7 feet that Fox himself called the best shot he had ever hit. He settled the game with a two-putt birdie.

The win propelled him from No. 75 to No. 32 in the world rankings. And more importantly, it punched his ticket to that year’s U.S. Open at Oak Mound as a top 60 player. To top it all off, he lifted his first-ever major championship trophy at the Open last Sunday. He became just the second New Zealander after Sir Bob Charles in 1963 to win the Claret Jug.

To top it off, the rewards are hefty. With this win, Fox has secured a five-year PGA Tour exemption, guaranteeing him full status through the end of the 2031 season. He has ensured automatic invitations into The Masters, the PGA Championship, and the U.S. Open for the next five years. Additionally, the win awards him 750 FedExCup points, pushing him up the standings to guarantee invitations into all lucrative, limited-field Signature Events.

Ryan Fox has previously insisted that he isn’t an All Black and never set out to be one, but he sure cemented himself as one of the best golfers in the sport’s recent memory. His triumph marks another chapter in New Zealand’s rich sporting history.