MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2023

Ryan Fox

Quick Quotes

Q. At the tee box this morning, what was the feeling for your first drive at Augusta National?

RYAN FOX: To be honest, I was a lot more calm and a lot less nervous than I expected to be, so that was a good thing. I hit a pretty decent first tee shot.

But, yeah, I just enjoyed the whole experience out there, to be honest. I sort of said to myself, regardless of what happens, I get to play the Masters, so I can live with whatever the outcome is and it was kind of a nice way to play today.

Q. The front nine, was that a case of being patient? Because you put yourself in some good positions here.

RYAN FOX: Yeah, I felt like I played really solid, gave myself -- I probably should have birdied 2 and 3 from where I was. But then made a really nice par on 5 and a little bit of a slipup on 6. But felt like it was really close. Definitely had a couple of those Augusta moments on 9, thought I had a great shot, and the breeze kind of switched back in for a second there, and that's -- you know, you talk to the guys, that seems to happen a fair bit around here, especially when the breeze is down.

But I couldn't have wished for a better start. I couldn't have wished for a better group to play with. I know Harrison and Billy really well, so we had a lot of fun out there.

Q. Talk me through the famous Amen Corner. You handled that really well, that saving for par on 11, birdie 12, and then on with the second on 13.

RYAN FOX: Yeah. I got lucky on 11, to be honest. I hit probably my worst tee shot of the day, and ended up with a little gap and an 8-iron on the green and 2-putted from 90-odd feet or whatever it was. Hit it exactly where you're supposed to on 12 and finally made a putt, which was nice. I guess I took the shot on on 13 from the pine straw. I kind of figured that's not a bad place to be this week. If you get a lie -- I hit 5-iron into the middle of the green today. It's not a too hard a shot if you get a lie, it's actually a bit flatter than what it is in the fairway, and made a nice 2-putt there.

So that sort of got the round going, and I probably could have had a couple more there, but if you would have given me 70 at the start of the day, I would have taken it.

Q. The great finish birdieing 18 in front of family and friends. How good was it having mom and dad and all the Kiwi mates out there today?

RYAN FOX: It's great to have my mates up here, mom and dad, obviously. I think Dad had a great time on the par-3 yesterday and, yeah, it's pretty special to be able to share the whole moment with them and give 'em a couple of cheers as well out there.

Q. Great first day at the office?

RYAN FOX: Yeah. Definitely hopefully more of the same tomorrow.

Q. When you were out there, did you -- were you locked in or did you glance over at the family, and if you did, did they give you comfort, security, help you play a little bit better?

RYAN FOX: To be honest, I kind of kept in the zone a little bit. I mean, I chatted to Harris and Billy. But it's kind of hard to pick people out of the crowd. We didn't have a whole heap of people following our group, but there's just so many people out there, it's just kind of hard to get eye contact with people.

So I saw a few of them kind of walking between tees. That was about it. But just kind of stuck and did my own thing and for the most part did it pretty well today.

Q. Your dad and grandfather were both accomplished athletes. What did you learn from them over your lifetime that's help you become what you've become as a golfer?

RYAN FOX: I think I got pretty lucky in genetics to start with. There's some decent hand-eye coordination in our family. So that's a pretty good starting point. I think from my granddad he was renowned as being very patient. They Nick named him Flip because he wouldn't say the other F word. So he was, I think I got a little bit of that from him.

And dad was probably the opposite. Dad was pretty highly strung but very, very competitive. I definitely got that from him growing up. He was renowned as being very mentally tough as well. So he caddied for me a lot and I sort of learned a fair bit from him in that regard as well. So I was very lucky growing up on a lot of fronts.

Q. Who are you more like dad or granddad?

RYAN FOX: If you would have asked me 10 years ago I would have probably said more like my granddad. But I think as I get older I get more and more like dad.

Q. Just going back to being a boy, memories of watching the Masters and now you're here.

RYAN FOX: Yeah, it's hard to describe, really. It's always been great timing to watch in New Zealand. It's always on early in the morning kind of the next day. So I remember getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning and watching until sort of midday pretty much for as long as I can remember, even before golf was a main sport for me. I really -- I especially remember Tiger in '97, I think I was 10 years old. And also I remember when I was starting to play amateur golf and early professional golf for me was Scotty winning in 2013. So to get a chance to actually play here is pretty surreal and I'm just trying to soak it up as much as possible.