Golf: Ryan Fox seeking to shake off rust forward of grouping with Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood in Dubai

Reflecting on his efficiency in his first match of the season, Ryan Fox stated “rusty would most likely be the perfect phrase for it”.

The World No 30 golfer was again in motion final week in
Abu Dhabi and put collectively a blended weekend; sitting seven-under-par in ninth after two rounds earlier than ending one-over in a tie for sixty fifth.

Whereas he was fast to confess how play actually was a consider how the weekend ended up, Fox was caught with a damaged driver in his third spherical and had to make use of an unfamiliar one for his fourth.

For a golfer whose distance off the tee is a giant weapon, it was removed from an excellent state of affairs to start the 12 months in.

“I performed actually properly on Friday and I truly felt like the sport wasn’t too distant on Saturday, however I cracked my driver,” Fox stated.

“I believe it most likely occurred on Friday and I unknowingly took in a damaged driver into Saturday and that simply killed me, to be trustworthy. I principally took away my primary weapon and I simply form of misplaced the plot a bit of bit on Saturday. I had a brand new driver head for Sunday and it took a bit of bit to get used to that on the golf course as properly.

“I had 9 holes the place I didn’t have a clue what was happening however fortunately I put collectively 9 good holes on the again 9 and will carry one thing into this week. So, there was undoubtedly some positives there; I had most likely 27 actually good holes of golf — on Friday afternoon and the again 9 on Sunday — and an entire bunch of crap elsewhere. However it was good to get again into match mode.”

Fox will flip issues proper again round this weekend on the Dubai Desert Traditional — with a like-for-like driver alternative in hand — the place he has been grouped alongside world No 1 Rory McIlroy and No 24 Tommy Fleetwood for the primary two days of the match.

“I’ve received to up my sport a bit of bit from final week hopefully,” Fox stated.

“However it’s good to be paired in a gaggle like that. These are the teams you form of dream of. I don’t know if there’ll be too many individuals watching within the morning if it’s raining, I don’t suppose they fairly know the way to cope with rain over right here, however come Friday afternoon, if it’s good and sunny, there’ll be loads of individuals following our group which will likely be very cool.”

The climate is anticipated to make life tough for the primary spherical of the match on Thursday afternoon (NZ time), with, surprisingly, rain forecast in Dubai.

“It’s nearly attempting to minimise your errors; you most likely can’t be fairly as aggressive,” Fox stated of getting to regulate for the potential moist climate.

“[I’m] anticipating it to be fairly crappy [on Thursday] and even par or simply making pars goes to be fairly good round Emirates Golf Membership.”