Ryan Fox’s chances of winning the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic looked bleak on the first hole of a three-man playoff after he hit his drive in the left rough and his second shot onto the back left fringe of The Dunes Golf and Beach Club’s 18th green, about 50 feet from the hole.
Harry Higgs was eyeing a 30-foot birdie putt that was very similar to a 25-footer he missed to the right just minutes earlier in regulation, and Mackenzie Hughes had a 12-foot birdie putt to win.
It appeared Fox’s best chance to survive would be to chip close enough for a par and hope his two competitors missed their putts to force another playoff hole.
Fox had other plans.
He dramatically holed the chip for birdie – landing it a few feet on the green and watching it roll into the cup – and both Higgs and Hughes missed their pending putts to give the New Zealander his first PGA Tour victory.
“Both of those guys had makeable chances so I felt like I had to give it a go,” Fox said. “When it landed I thought, ‘Oh this has got a chance.’ Honestly about 6 or 8 feet out I thought it was in . . . and the rest of it is a bit of a blur from there.”
With his win, Fox earns $720,000 of the $4 million purse and qualifies for next week’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. He played in 11 consecutive majors prior to this year’s Masters, making the cut in his last eight with three top-30 finishes.
“I played all of them the last two years and I was pretty gutted to miss the Masters this year,” Fox said. “So there was one spot going this week and the only way to get it was to win. So I’m [excited] with that. I love Quail Hollow as a golf course. . . . I might have a little bit of a hangover tomorrow driving to Quail but that’s all good, I can live with that.”
It has taken Fox a little time to settle into life in the U.S. and have success on the PGA Tour.
The 38-year-old is an accomplished player with four DP World Tour (formerly European Tour) wins among eight international victories, and has played in the Olympics three times and World Cup two-person team event twice.
Fox now has just four top-10s in 68 PGA Tour events, including a tie for fourth last year in Myrtle Beach. He said he traveled with his wife and two children under the age of four for 20 weeks last year, and there was a transition period both on and off the golf course.
“It’s obviously just a different country, different culture,” Fox said. “For me I was really comfortable in Europe. I’d been out there like seven or eight years, knew how everything worked, knew the tournaments I wanted to play, knew a lot of the golf courses. Coming over here last year, everything was new. New golf courses, new cities. The travel is a bit different.
“. . . It’s probably been a tough couple seasons out here, just getting my card last year, I haven’t had a great start this year so far. I always felt like my game was good enough to compete with the best in the world and I got to show it a little bit today. Hopefully it kick-starts things for the rest of the year for me.”
Fox is the ninth PGA Tour winner from New Zealand and first since Danny Lee in 2015.
He began the day three shots off the lead in a tie for fourth and shot a 5-under 66 in Sunday’s final round to get into the playoff at 15-under 269.
He made the turn 1 under and birdied holes 10, 13, 15 and 17.
“I’ve had some pretty good shots down the stretch over in Europe,” Fox said. “It was nice to do the same thing here. Regardless if I would have come out with a win or not today, I was really happy with how I played, and I could have taken a lot out of it. To get that win is extra special.”
Higgs and Hughes, who were playing alongside Carson Young in the final group, appeared to make the final round a two-player race when they reached 15 under and were two clear of their chasers.
Higgs birdied holes 1, 2 and 4 to take a two-shot lead before making bogey on 6 and birdie on 10, while Hughes’ card included birdies on holes 4, 7, 8 and 10.
But they each bogeyed the par-5 13th hole known as Waterloo, as Higgs hit it into Lake Singleton and Hughes three-putted after hitting a wedge to just 60 feet, and Kevin Yu got to the clubhouse tied for the lead at 14 under.
Yu birdied three of his final four holes, making a two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th and holing putts of 23 and 30 feet on the 17th and 18th holes to close out a 6-under 65.
Yu has a win in last year’s Sanderson Farms Championship and two third-place finishes in his two-plus years on tour.
Fox joined the group at 14 under with a 13-foot birdie putt on the 15th.
But both Higgs and Hughes birdied the 15th to again separate by a shot at 15 under with chip shots to 5 and 12 feet, respectively.
Fox hit his tee shot on the 181-yard par-3 17th to 7 feet for birdie to tie for the lead before Hughes holed a 17-foot birdie putt on the 16th to become the first player in the tournament to reach 16 under.
A Hughes bogey on the 18th allowed Fox to get into the playoff.
Hughes hit his drive into the trees and pinestraw to the left of the fairway, chipped out and hit a 150-yard approach to 10 feet, but he missed the putt that would have given the Canadian his third PGA Tour title, joining those in 2016 and 2022.
Higgs had a 25-foot birdie putt moments prior to Hughes’ miss on 18 that could have presumably given him his first PGA Tour victory.
“I’m proud and bummed out,” said Higgs, 33, who now has three PGA Tour runner-up finishes to go with three Korn Ferry Tour wins. “It felt like this one was mine. Hopefully I get another chance, and I think that I will. I think that I’m on the right path, as long as I continue it.
“. . . This was so much fun. That’s, again, the reason why you do the 4 a.m. wake-ups, flying all around, doing all the things that we have to do just to have the chance that I just had. I really enjoyed it. I’m really looking forward to the next time that I have this chance.”
Young, a Clemson alumnus and Anderson resident, entered the final round with a one-shot lead but shot a 2-over 73 to fall into a tie for 13th.
Inclement weather overnight and Sunday morning led PGA Tour officials to put players in threesomes and send them off both the first and 10th tees over two hours, and the leaders teed off just before 1 p.m.
Winning on Mother’s Day, with his wife, Anneke, and two young daughters at the 18th green to celebrate made the win a little more special for Fox.
“Pretty cool,” Fox said. “Obviously it’s Mother’s Day today. On Friday I said, ‘What can I get you for Mother’s Day?’ She goes, ‘Well, a trophy would be nice.’ I guess I lived up to my end of the bargain there.
“To have the wife and kids here is amazing. I mean, you saw my two little girls, Isabel and Margot, running out on the green like crazy chickens. I don’t think they quite understand what’s going on, but yeah, it’s pretty cool to have those photos, have those memories of them here.”
Fox’s win earns him a 2 1/2-year PGA Tour membership exemption through the 2027 season as well as a start in the season-opening The Sentry in Hawaii, which has a $20 million purse with no cut and had just 59 players in the field this year.
