'You'd do the same': Fox's Claret Jug banter as PGA Tour nears end

Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox has a pretty quick comeback for when his friends on the PGA Tour banter about him taking the Claret Jug with him everywhere he goes.

“A lot of guys are kind of giving me stick about it, and then I’ve said, ‘Well, you’d do the same wouldn’t you?’ And they go, ‘absolutely’,” Fox said.

The Claret Jug’s tour under Fox’s watch continued last week in Memphis for the St Jude Championship, the first stop on the PGA Tour playoffs.

Fox was out to dinner with other international team hopefuls for the Presidents Cup, which is being held in September, and had with him the famed golfing trophy he earned by winning the Open Championship.

He had it so he was able to take it to a dinner with his sponsor, Srixon, the night before, so asked if he should bring it along, giving Australian Min Woo Lee a bit of playful ammo for social media, sharing a video of Fox having dinner with the Claret Jug proudly on display on the bar behind him.

“At the functions the last couple of nights I took the jug out and everyone’s really excited to see it and get photos and look at it, and it’s just cool to be able to do that, right?

“I’m not just randomly taking it to the golf course and leaving it there, but like the Presidents Cup dinner last week I asked [Australian golfer] Adam Scott and also [international team captain] Geoff Ogilvy ... ‘I’ve got the jug with me, do you want me to bring it?’ And they’re like, ' Absolutely‘ ... they said I’m going to be the first major champion or reigning major champion in the international team since Jason Day in 2017, so that’s pretty cool to do that.

“You could see all the guys in the team were pretty excited to just have a look at it and see it, so it just sat in the background and then Min being Min, was a bit cheeky and gave me some stick on social media as he should.”

The only player publicly confirmed in the international team is South Korean Si Woo Kim, with Fox currently second in the standings. With the top six at the end of the PGA Tour season getting automatic selection before another six are selected by the team captain, the Kiwi is all but assured of earning his place as one of the first six.

For now, however, Fox’s focus was on achieving a different goal for the year and qualifying for next week’s Tour Championship.

To do so, he will need to maintain his top-30 position in the FedEx Cup rankings through this week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St Louis.

Following last week’s tournament in Memphis, the field was cut from the top 70 to the top 50, with 20 more players having their season ended after this weekend.

Fox had his struggles last week – playing some good golf but being punished on the greens – to finish in a tie for 58th at five-over-par for the week.

However, he came home with a strong final round and enters a tournament in preferable conditions and currently at No 25 in the FedEx Cup standings.

“I would say this golf course suits me a little better than last week. Even though I’m based in Florida and play on Bermuda all the time, I still can’t figure out Bermuda grass, on the greens especially, and I think that was a part of last week, whereas this week is much more similar to what we would play at home [in New Zealand].

“They call it zoysia fairways here, but it’s kind of like playing off kikuyu, really, and they’ve got bent greens which are a lot easier to figure out – well, I find [them] a lot easier to figure out – so hopefully that puts me in good stead.

“I played the PGA Championship here in 2018 and had a pretty reasonable week, from memory. It’s a golf course that I’ve got good memories of, and I’ve enjoyed playing nine holes the last few days, where we’re definitely out of the heat a little bit ... apparently quite surprising for St Louis this time of year.

“We’re going to have temperatures around 30 degrees, which is a whole lot better than the 37, 38 we had in Memphis last week. I think that probably didn’t help me too much, so I think all in all this week’s shaping up hopefully to be a bit better than last week.”

Ryan Fox tee times

Round 1: 3.05am Friday. Round 2: 5.42am Saturday.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits