Ryan Fox is ready to get back to work.

It’s been a banner year in the career of the 38-year-old Auckland golfer, bagging two PGA Tour titles and finishing well inside the top 50 of the season standings to earn the right to enter all of the tour’s big events in 2026.

Fox also became a world record holder, for most par-threes completed by a team in three minutes, alongside Australian Min Woo Lee and Englishman Dan Bradbury.

It’s a different position to where he found himself at the back end of the 2024 season, where he needed to play some events on the fall schedule to put his return to the American tour beyond doubt.

“To come back home with a couple of PGA Tour wins under the belt and locked up everything I want to get in for next year is pretty damn cool,” Fox told the Herald.

“I got to tick off a dream this year, winning on the PGA Tour, which you don’t often get to do. So, that was very cool and I definitely enjoyed my holiday a little bit more knowing I’d done all of that stuff and actually could take a break.”

Fox hasn’t played a tournament since finishing in a tie for 14th at the French Open in mid-September, with golf being the last thing he wanted to think about upon initially returning to New Zealand for a break.

That ends this week, as Fox returns Downunder for the BMW Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland in Brisbane; his first tournament appearance in one of Australia’s major events since 2022.

“It’s been a good break. I felt like I needed it at the end of that PGA Tour season. I played a lot of golf in a short space of time there and, you know, when I got home, I pretty much didn’t want to see my golf clubs.

“It was nice to actually not be able to see them for a few weeks and I’ve been pretty busy the last month or so getting back into it – playing some social golf and doing some charity and corporate days and stuff like that, seeing [coach] Marcus [Wheelhouse] and doing some work. It’s nice to be back on tour this week and catching up with some friends and getting back into some work properly.”

There is strong New Zealand representation in the field for this week’s tournament, with 13 Kiwis among the contenders, including Daniel Hillier, who narrowly missed out on a PGA Tour card of his own on the DP World Tour, Kazuma Kobori and Denzel Ieremia.

It’s a sign of the growth in the game on home shores, Fox says, with plenty of talent now starting to come through in the professional ranks.

“We’re in a pretty good place, I think, not just in the men’s game. Obviously, Lydia’s [Dame Lydia Ko] flying the flag up high in the women’s game, but a few others are coming in behind her like Amelia Garvey doing well in Europe, Momoka Kobori, Fiona Xu was playing in the LPGA Tour this year, which is pretty cool,” he said.

“And, you look at the men’s game now, Dan [Hillier] and Kazuma [Kobori] both had great years in Europe – I kind of feel for Dan a little bit, you know, just missing out on that PGA Tour card. Sam Jones is playing on the Challenge Tour, Josh Geary’s won in Australasia this year, Nick Voke’s won in Australasia this year, Mike Hendry’s doing well in Japan still, and we’ve got some young guys coming up, you know, like Denzel ... he’s doing well on the Asian Tour and a bunch of guys like Kerry Mountcastle and, Tyler Hodge and stuff plying their trade in Aussie, which is pretty cool to see.

“I don’t know if the stats are right, but it feels like we’ve got a lot more guys playing on tour now than, you know, when I first came on tour 15 years ago and it’s pretty cool to see so many people doing well on the world stage.”

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