New Zealand golfer Ryan Fox has secured a spot in this week’s PGA Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club after a dynamic season marked by both significant achievements and challenging moments. Fox, 39, is competing in the season-ending event for the first time, having finished 30th in the FedEx Cup standings following the BMW Championship in St. Louis last week.
Fox entered the playoffs ranked 22nd but experienced some difficulty finding consistent form after his breakthrough victory at the Open Championship in July, his first major title. Returning from a three-week break, he tied for 58th at the St. Jude Championship in Memphis, causing his ranking to slip to 25th. The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings qualify for the PGA Tour Championship, making his performance in the subsequent BMW Championship crucial.
At the BMW Championship, Fox showed flashes of strong play but struggled at times with putting and overall execution, ultimately finishing tied for 47th. His early completion of the final round left him in a provisional position on the bubble for qualification, and he waited as other players finished to confirm his place at No. 30. This milestone marks a key goal achieved by Fox in 2026.
“The Presidents Cup was probably the number one goal and I would say I’m pretty safe for that now,” Fox said. “Then obviously getting to East Lake [for the] Tour Championship was a big goal at the start of the season, something I’d never done on the PGA Tour. To tick that off is massive and then you throw winning a major in there—I’ve accomplished probably far more than I would have ever thought to write down at the start of the year.”
Reflecting on his challenging playoff stretch, Fox emphasized the overall success of his season despite recent struggles. “It’s easy to have the recency bias and be like, ‘Oh, I haven’t played well in the playoffs, it’s disappointing,’ but I need to be able to look at it properly and say, ‘Regardless, I’m really happy with the whole year.’ While we all want more, I can say I’ve achieved everything I set out to do this year and that’s a massive, massive tick.”
During the BMW Championship, Fox participated in a unique media collaboration between the PGA Tour and NFL Films called Chasing Sunday, which provided viewers an inside look at a golf round by featuring players wearing microphones. Fox, along with American players Wyndham Clark, Ryan Gerard, and Jake Knapp, contributed to the hour-long feature, which is available on the PGA Tour’s YouTube channel. Clark won the tournament.
Fox described the experience as enjoyable and unobtrusive. “It was a couple of little things here and there before and after rounds and rides to the golf course. For the most part, it was pretty easy to forget you were mic’d up, which I think is what they want. They want it to be as honest and open as possible.”
Looking ahead to the Tour Championship, Fox will begin his first round paired with South Korea’s Tom Kim. He described the East Lake course as demanding, with strong driving holes and challenging greens. “If you drive it well, you get some chances, but on both nines, there’s a couple of really strong holes that you need to get through without taking too much damage. There are some pretty severe greens, with nasty run-offs you don’t want to deal with, and a couple of very strong par 3s, including one that can play upwards of 240 metres.”
Fox anticipates that a solid round can produce a good score, but any mistakes may be costly in what he views as a test of a high-quality golf course. As he competes in this final event of a landmark year, Fox appears poised to build on an already impressive list of accomplishments in 2026.