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hey Runners only with dime Harvey Runners only with dom Harvey and Ryan Fox New Zealand's best golfer g'day mate
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hey mate well you can say that Lydia Cole's a little better than me at the moment to be fair female female yeah you
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say male golf okay male golfer we got that we got that hey welcome thanks for coming over yeah it's great to be here
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uh first things first I guess we have to tick off um I actually know first thing
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um this podcast was set up by Eric Murray who's been on the podcast I saw he was playing a charity thing with you
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last week um so I flipped him a message saying I'll hit Ryan up see if we'll go
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on my podcast and then next thing you know he he sent me your number and here you are now I just want to know what is
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Eric Murray's sales patch what does he say how does this um he's like hey Don wants to get in touch
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with you as all right if I pass on your number and Eric's done plenty of stuff
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for me and that you know I host a couple of charity events pretty much if you have if you host a golf day in New
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Zealand you could get Eric there basically I mean more than you he's obsessed and yes
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so you know he's done done me plenty of favors in that regard and claimed my
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couple of my golf days here and there so yeah it's not hard to repay the favor a
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little bit in that regard well amazing well I appreciate you being here um now the podcast is called Runner Zone
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because I'm I'm passionate about running I love running and I know that everyone's got some relationship to
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running so what's yours forced to do the cross country at school yep that's
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that's about the extent of it I've had um I've had ankle issues through golf
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for years um I've got flat feet and bowed legs which is unfortunately genetics
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um and I always hated running at school but after you know sort of hurting my ankle early on in my golf career I've
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stayed away from any of the impact stuff so um so you've got no relationship to
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running at all none you know maybe running between the wickets and Cricket back at school was the last time I
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probably ran ran anything properly and it's been a long time since I've been at
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school right well I've seen you I've seen you playing golf as most of us have
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and uh you're a big hitter so I'm guessing it was much the same with Cricket you did what you could to avoid
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the cheeky single uh yes yes yes fours and sixes were much easier than uh than the quick singles yeah okay fair enough
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um I mean you don't need running in your life like you've got a fantastic other
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side hustle going on don't you yeah yeah yeah golf goes all right at the moment
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to be fair and I mean I still walk 10K a day on a golf course you know like that
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that's pretty much what it is so it's not running you look at some I mean this
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there is speed golf now yeah a motorman had the world record for a while and gee
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with your drive you're a very long hitter you if you could just get a bit of speed in those ankles you'd be okay
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well we've got the World Champ at the moment don't we Jamie Reese yeah and
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he's he's trying to break a hundred which is shoot under 17 under 30 minutes
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which seems absurd yeah but I full respect to that I couldn't shoot I couldn't do that trying to run
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one golf hole let alone the whole course so um yeah it's there's always there is a
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little bit of relationship between Golf and running just just not with me yeah now let's um talk about some of your
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stats so end of 2021 you're 213 from the world uh end of 2022 29th in the world
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uh which is just it's Bonkers to me it's amazing that's such a substantial jump
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but I want to know like what's the difference between those two numbers is it just like a a couple of lucky putts
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or are you just a way different and way better golfer now than what you were 12 months ago um
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I don't think I'm a way better golfer per se um it's you get a lot out of the out of good
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results so like winning makes a massive difference in the world rankings that's
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what yo it's all a world ranking point it's a front loaded and I had a lot of
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you know top finishes including a couple of wins this year so that helps massively with the world rankings but I
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think overall if you look at say scoring average which is what you know anything's kind of based on yeah it's
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only about half a shot difference around like it's not when you think about that
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over the scheme of things it's not it's not a lot yeah but obviously you
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know the the lower that is the the harder it is you know to improve to improve so incremental gains yeah and
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and obviously it's a bit Golf Course dependent too right you go yeah a harder
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Golf Course is obviously harder to shoot a low score on so your scoring average suffers if you play tougher golf courses
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yeah for sure so um goals for 2023 um so you've claimed 174 places in the past
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year if you go up just 28 places this year you're going to be the best in the
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world like is it as easy as that or no no so let I think if you look at it's it's based on a points breakdown
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um and my average points is somewhere close enough to three per event where what does that mean so so the world
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ranking you get given up a set amount of points per event that you're playing and
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it's all based on the field strength it's quite a complicated equation but
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basically you earn points at the end of a week depending on how you've done obviously the better you do the more
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points you earn yeah and then they basically take a divisor of how many tournaments you play and it's a minimum
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of 40 and a maximum of 52 so you've got a and it's a two-year two-year rolling
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ranking so my my points average for the last two years are somewhere around three probably just under and you look
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at um I think Rory at number one is somewhere around nine so I was I was sitting
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you know probably at 200 in the world I was sitting at somewhere around one you know just under one one point per
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averaging one point per event and I've taken that up to three then obviously
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the jump up to go to world number one is pretty pretty significant and if you go
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back you know a long time ago when tiger was dominating um world golf he was averaging 20. Jesus
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so at one stage he was more points ahead of second than what second have had average if that makes sense but that's
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because he's still I mean everyone knows Tiger Woods and even now if he lines up
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um this was a story on the sports news here in New Zealand about how he's how
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he's going how was backers and whatever um but he what was his win percentage
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like 20 15 so at his Peak it was something around 30 33 which you know if you compare it to other
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sports Chicago balls or even even you know tennis is probably a nice direct comparison right because it's an
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individual sport you know Djokovic and doll Federer those guys are up in the high 80s early 90s something like that
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over a whole career but you're only trying to beat one person at a time where you're trying to beat
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you start the week 100 there's 155 other guys in the field you're trying to beat
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so it's yeah like it's it's a little bit different in that respect so when you
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when you think about it 33 doesn't sound like a lot but then when you compare it
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to pretty much everyone else especially in the modern era of golf it is absolutely absurd when you can a Hall of
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Fame golf career is sort of eight or nine PGA Tour events and two and two majors and Tiger's got 15 majors and 80
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something PGA Tour events like it's it's absurd what he did and and it was over
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we still lost a lot yeah he did and he finished second a lot there's lots of
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other top tens um but he also had lots of wins lots of Seasons where he won nine times I mean
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that's unheard of yeah it's Bonkers but so he's um is he still behind Jack Nicholas the
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golden beer in terms of Majors yep so I don't think I don't think he is three
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behind Jackson was 18. and I don't think anyone's going to get close to Jack's
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number I think you know golfers you know it's become a bit harder as a sport both
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on your body I think you know there's a lot more power involved now and that you
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know the career what the longevity isn't in the career anymore just look at Tiger
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You Know Jack won his last Masters at 46. and Tiger's been broken since he was
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before he was 40 you know he's had a he's obviously won a masters and a couple other events since then but it's
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nowhere near the same level um and also I think because there's so much money involved in the game now
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there's much more com you know it's a much more viable career path as an
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athlete yeah right so there's more more people doing it so I don't think you'll
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see anyone beat Jack I don't think you'll see anyone get near to Tiger to be honest yeah so
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speaking of the money it was exactly happy anniversary it was exactly a month ago today that you finished second at a
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tournament in South Africa and won 1.1 million yeah which is from like from where I'm sitting for me and I suppose
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anyone listening to this podcast the only way you'd get a Payday that big would be if you won LOTTO maybe got an
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inheritance or sold a house that you've had for many many many years so my celebration with 1.1 million would
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probably involve um maybe some strippers cocaine a helicopter somewhere I don't know what
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was what do you do what do you do you finish second um you win 1.1 million what what does that night look like
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um to be honest I went to bed relatively early and jumped on a flight the next day with a two-year-old on the way to
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Dubai so um I did it I did actually go to the bar at business class on the A380 and have a
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couple of drinks while my little one was technically trying to sleep in my seat I
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didn't complain too much when I got sent back to the bar but I mean it's
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we've got a very funny way of life in that regard like you know your bears and
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your family Oh no just just golfers I mean our family's got a weird way of life as well but
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um we make because everything's in bunches right like generally and this probably wasn't
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the case this year but generally you make 80 percent of it 80 of your money in a year and 20 of your tournaments
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right so it's well just in terms of results yeah so and you know it's it's
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you know in professional sport in general you're never at the top your game every week and you get found out a
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bit more in individual sports potentially but you know there's only 20 of the time
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you're actually really on form the rest of it you're going okay and then there's
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a bit at the bottom where you're really struggling and you know you make a lot of money real
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quick in golf but I think what a lot of people don't realize is you know unlike
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sporting teams and stuff like that where everything's kind of covered it's not
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for us we put we cover everything yeah I wanted to want to ask you about that so
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you win you win 1.1 million I'm guessing there's taxes and stuff involved and
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plus some who like who's on who's on team Fox you've got a key I've got caddy
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I've got two coaches manager I've got a physio I've got a physio on tour I've
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got physio trainer back here I mean there's a decent amount of people so what are you really regardless of how
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well you do like at the start of the year like what are your fees for the year um so I I mean it's hard to work out but
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basically every event you've got flights accommodation food for a week and other
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sort of random expenses and then you know you're adding physio on top of that
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and all of that so I would say before you before I kick off for a year it's a
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minimum of a quarter of a mil New Zealand maybe maybe maybe more and then it then basically it's the
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the more you earn you get you pay out and percentage for caddies and coaches and stuff like that so
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um you know if I look just going off the top of my head this year my expenses per se because I've had
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a really good year are going to be well into seven figures which is fine it's fine because it's
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you've already made it and you're paying out from that but you know at the start
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of the year you are you know you're probably it probably costs you between five and ten Grand a
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week depending on where you're traveling to yeah that's when when you're in a
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slump like and I'm thinking um Michael Campbell for a time and also I'm from
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Palmerston North so I know ground weight yeah um him for a time after he won the
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the was it the camper challenge yeah camper open yeah you've got to be like I'm a hemorrhaging money
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seven cups in a row in 2019. so if you miss a cat that means that means the first two rounds you get asked you don't
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make any money no and you're I mean your experiences are exactly the same you've
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still got your caddy fee you've still got your flights you've still got your
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accommodation you've still got all your food for a week so that's you know
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four or five plus Grand minimum for the week and I kind of I think to an extent it's almost gambling you know it's it's
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controlled it's control gambling right you go well I'm back yeah I'm backing my
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own ability but you've got to spend money to make money in that sense so yeah yeah it gets if you'd have told me
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you know in my first couple of years as a pro where I just traveled around Aussie the expenses weren't too bad you
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know it was still 40 or 50 60 Grand a year but you know I could I made a little bit and was like oh yeah I've had
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a good year all of a sudden when you're traveling around the world doing it and
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um you know do a lot of long-haul stuff and I'm lucky enough to be able to do
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some of that business class and all of that now but it it gets steep pretty quickly so absolutely yeah when it when
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you're up in there you know five six seven hundred thousand a year and expenses it's it's it gets quite scary
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quite quickly so is you're carry on like a flat fee each week and then it gets a
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percentage Yeah so okay so when you won that 1.1 million dollars a month ago today
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um I'm guessing Paddy was like yeah the points that I get for the world rankings
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and this and yeah but the caddy must be thinking oh [ __ ] this is a good Payday
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for me yes yeah I mean uh he gets eight eight of that so it's like 88 000. yeah
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yeah I paid him 45 000 pounds or something oh my God so what did he do that night strippers cocaine no he was
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the same as me I mean he uh I think he had a he had a couple of beers with his mates and that was it but it's
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I can't it's it's kind of weird like it's you get you actually get numb to
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really they just become figures those become figures like yeah okay it's a lot
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of money and you know um certainly not downplaying it at all but you get so used to so much coming in and so much
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coming out and chunks like I don't even I wouldn't know what a weekly paycheck
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looks like you know and and you go through yeah I've got I cut I'll have a
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month or six weeks without getting paid anything at the moment and that's kind
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of normal and you know when you go all right you know you can cover yourself for a while that kind of thing so it's
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yeah it's kind of a as I said it's probably a very strange way to make a
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living it is it's nuts it's Bonkers and you're cater you fly home business class
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eh why no so he covers he covers his own expenses so that's how it works the flat
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fee Connor covers most of his expenses for the week so he can choose to fly business if he wants uh or not
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um most of them generally don't they're just quite happy having a couple of
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beers in the lounge and try to pass out on the plane um yeah and then you know he he gets a
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he basically they're essentially gambling on me right yeah or gambling on your player if your players you don't
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really make anything out of the fee for the week you just make sure you don't
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lose money and then you know if your player does well then you you make a good wage like you
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know my cat has got eight percent of whatever of well I eight and tens for a win so he's he's had a couple of pretty
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pretty decent paydays this year from me and it's you know it's pretty cool he's
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yeah like this year's changed his life quite significantly I bet I bet so when
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when you're lining up like those final putts and there's 1.1 million dollars on
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the line um he may be able to play it cool but his his partner back at home whatever
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she must be thinking [ __ ] if Ryan gets this we can renovate the kitchen or I I
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don't I don't know I just stay away we don't need that I stay away from it and
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to be honest like I don't think about it either I know early on I kinda I kind of
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did you kind of think all this putt's for 10 grand or 20 grand or whatever I
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mean if you start thinking of it that way you just lose it it's all about just
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okay well this is it's it's as weird as it sounds it's better to have a part to
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win a tournament than it is to have a putt for a million bucks yeah but I'm guessing guessing you've got enough um
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you know we talk about expenses and the in-goings and the outgoings I suppose you've got enough of a buff an hour or a
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base that you can just focus on the golf and focus on the rankings involved so it's not about the money it's about no
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no and to be fair it's not about the money at the start either but um when you're first starting out you
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know you go to Q School which is a way to get on a tour and that costs you a bunch of money and you're almost in a
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hole to start with so it almost automatically becomes about the money because you need to play well to
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actually be able to keep doing what you're doing right and then you know once you at least know you cover
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yourself then it's about the results that's not you know there's definitely guys that play for money out
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there I'm not I'm not one of them obviously it's a it's a really nice
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benefit of it but it's you know it's like hey you know the um I want to win tournaments I want to
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do well and I get more reward out of you know I won Dunhill length so you know a
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couple of months ago and I got much more out of that than looking at what the paycheck was at the end of it just what
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what do you mean much about that like getting your name on a trophy well yeah it just you know that's what it's
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itching your name yeah yeah that's what you know it was a tournament around the
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old course at St Andrews it's the home of golf I got to win the tournament round there and that means a a whole lot
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more in terms of Legacy in terms of your career than you know whatever that paycheck was yeah and I suppose in a way
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does that mean you're exempt from going back to qualifying school for many many
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years not many many but again what the one thing we don't have in golf is job
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security right so yeah you know imagine for you on a podcast right that you have
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to have a certain amount of subscribers or certain amount of listeners every year if you don't reach that then it
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disappears so I would have been given given the ask from the platform ages ago so and that's kind of what it is for us
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right you start out from scratch at the beginning of the year and if you don't
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earn enough money you start you go back and you I had a mate this year who's
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been on tour for quite a few years and he played terrible made a couple of cuts and he's right you know right back from
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scratch and burn to a lot of money this year and it does happen so winning is the one that gives you the exemption so
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I've got exemption until the end of 24 so it's kind of nice having you know I
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know I've got I've got job security for two years that's a big part of this game
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which you don't get otherwise oh how good so the Q School thing and all of that I want to get back into that but I
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feel like we need to go back to the beginning and unpack the life of Ryan Fox so so
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um when you're born how far is your dad into his career your dad's the great grandfox so I was born
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in 87. 87 when did when did when did your dad retire 93 87 okay so 87 was obviously a pretty important year
00:18:44
the very first Rugby World Cup yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so so that's actually
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it's actually quite funny my wife was born on the day of the World Cup final
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actually yep yep that's amazing yeah I only found out about that because they
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did some um newspaper thing quite a few years ago and rang all the uh parents of the kids
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that were born actually she was born during the during the final they rang all the parents and well they rang their
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mum and mum's going well you never believe it but she's actually going out
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with uh one of the you know one of the guys one of the players Sons so that's
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how I that's how she didn't know what an amazing full circle thing so do you know
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much about the birth like was the was her dad I'm pretty sure her dad and the doctor
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were watching it that's that's about as far as I got with that yeah so I mean for you
00:19:38
you must look back and think if that was an unusual childhood I suppose at the time you don't think anything of it
00:19:42
because it's just your life um but your dad was like a New Zealand [ __ ] rock star yeah I mean I was one
00:19:49
of the greatest goalkeepers ever so you must have been you know I don't know
00:19:53
sitting on [ __ ] Martin Crow's lap as a kid yeah when you you actually at the nail
00:20:00
on the head when you're a kid it's just normal right that's what I grew up in it
00:20:03
doesn't matter but yeah like Martin Crow was dad's best mate you know going into
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the changing room and being able to call all these all blacks and you know Auckland players by name and know them
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and you know still you know Dad's still friends with them to this day kind of
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thing and obviously I know you know guys like John Kohler and Sean Fitzpatrick those guys
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yeah it's kind of weird to think about it now that I've got some perspective on it but as a
00:20:26
kid it was just okay that's JK or that's your normal it's just normal yeah yeah
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and that's you know I was lucky enough you know Dad coached all my Rugby teams
00:20:34
growing up so we you know felt like we kind of had an advantage there I got coached by Martin Crowe for batting and
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Cricket when I was a teenager I mean you know it's pretty hard to have access to
00:20:43
that any other way so yeah and got to play golf with I think one of my first memories on the golf course one of the
00:20:50
first rounds of golf I ever played was at Royal Auckland where Dad was a member um which I'm a member at now and I think
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I was about 10 years old and it was Mark Nicholas Ian Botham Martin crime old man
00:21:01
and I sort of tagged along and hit a few shots and yeah so you didn't even realize I didn't even
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know yeah I mean I I I I knew cricket and I probably knew who in both of them Mark Nicholas and Marty were but I
00:21:13
didn't have any appreciation they were just yeah yeah dudes that Dad and Marty knew and that
00:21:18
was that was it and you look at it now and you know people pay literally walking around just hacking balls around
00:21:30
it's nice that you can look back at it now and realize what a huge huge thing
00:21:33
it was um what was what was your what do you know if your dad was even at your birth because it was a different era
00:21:38
back there layoff and all that gets pregnant they'll get excused from tour and stuff but back then it was rugby
00:21:42
first he was around for mine he wasn't around for my sisters a couple of years
00:21:46
later I think she was by all accounts she was a little bit late and he delayed going to was it Japan I actually I don't
00:21:54
know I mean I was I was three years old or something but he delayed going somewhere and then she still wasn't born
00:22:00
and then he disappeared and she was he met her six weeks later or whatever it was and what was he what was he like as
00:22:06
a dad Growing Up So if it's a mum podcast and radio interviews he's done
00:22:09
recently and he seems like um like yeah he seems quite quite gentle and quite kind and quite his view on the current
00:22:15
players and what they have to go through in terms of like social media and cancer
00:22:18
culture and stuff he's um he's quite empathetic empathetic wasn't was he
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always like that it was he he was quite tough to be fair I mean he was always it always came from the right place yeah
00:22:30
he was super competitive so I mean yeah I mean that's that's I mean he stopped
00:22:37
playing tennis before I could beat him oh I was like 13 or 14. really yeah I mean he cited a bad restaurant he still
00:22:45
has a bad wrist but I think he gave it up a little bit earlier than he probably could have otherwise really we started
00:22:50
to snatch a few games off him here and then yeah he didn't talk to me when I
00:22:54
first beat him off the stick at golf is that right yeah how old I was about 15 then dad's played off single figures
00:22:59
he's played off sort of four or five since I can remember so it was always pretty good what do you mean he didn't
00:23:04
speak to you for two days I was angry at how he played right you know there was and you know there was I was a sitting
00:23:10
coach media rugby growing up I didn't help myself I played first five eight and kicked goals as well so I was [ __ ]
00:23:17
yeah um when you bit him in golf for the first time as a teenager where you were you
00:23:23
like like bragging or gloating in the car ride home were you no no no no no no no that's that you weren't poking the
00:23:29
beer oh no the beer was the bear was in the bed it didn't need to be poked I mean and that was yeah Dad
00:23:36
Dad was dead was great always supportive of everything I wanted to do and whatever it didn't matter what sport but
00:23:41
there was there was a pure hatred of losing and whether it was snow coat There Was You know I I don't I don't
00:23:48
remember snooker table tennis tennis golf whatever it was I don't I don't ever remember
00:23:57
dad being I um it might have happened when I was really young and I don't remember it but
00:24:02
I don't ever remember dad being nice enough to let me win when I was good enough at something to give them a go
00:24:07
you know it was always like well if you're going to beat me you've got to
00:24:10
beat me properly I'm not giving you it amazing so so I'm fixated on this golf
00:24:16
thing so so you get home and it's it's just everyone's sort of walking around
00:24:19
on eggshells for a couple of days or yeah I mean you're exaggerating about two days probably a day probably yeah
00:24:25
that's what I remember but it was probably more like two hours and it was just yeah he just grumpy I mean you know
00:24:32
he's the amount he's still the same now I mean there's there's he hates playing bad in golf I think
00:24:39
most golfers hate playing bad but dad's you know Dad loves a few a bit of swearing and I mean I've got a couple of
00:24:45
great stories of him on the golf course he's I've played in New Zealand I open
00:24:48
with him as and he was my amateur partner and I you know he's he doesn't
00:24:53
mind a club throw doesn't mind swearing on the golf course I said dad there's
00:24:56
going to be quite a lot of people watching us out there he's like you know you probably can't you know throw throw
00:25:01
your toys and throw clubs and swear and he goes he goes I can get away with not throwing a club but there's no way I'm
00:25:06
not [ __ ] smearing and that's exactly what happened about three holes then and
00:25:11
there was another one um it's a man of my old man's and we used to play golf
00:25:15
every summer down at the mount at the mount and I just got a new set of clubs I was probably like 16 17 or something
00:25:20
like that and I had a bad shot and about four holes in I Chuck I it falls and I Chuck my club
00:25:27
and MOB man looks at his mate and he goes look I know this is hypocritical but I'm gonna have to go at him for this
00:25:35
so he scolded me for throwing his clubs I've learned it off Dad so yeah Dad was
00:25:43
yeah there was yeah it was competitive I mean even eating in our household was competitive you know I
00:25:49
he went to boarding school growing up if you didn't eat fast you didn't get
00:25:53
seconds so he always ate fast and I always wanted to eat as fast as he did or faster
00:25:57
that's amazing so it's just we just grew up in it wow just one of those people
00:26:02
that's competitive with it so you think if you were if you were that good at
00:26:06
something like he was at goal kicking and playing rugby there you could let everything else slide in your life well
00:26:11
are you the same or are you um I'm a bit more relaxed in a lot of ways than he is
00:26:19
um I'm a lot less analytical I think that's that was where him and I differ a
00:26:23
lot you know he was always and playing golf he's the same he's if something
00:26:28
goes wrong he wants to know what it was whereas I've kind of been like if it's a
00:26:32
trend I'll figure out what's going on but if it's one bad shot or one bad
00:26:36
thing it's just easier to escape stuff it doesn't matter you know I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago
00:26:42
this one called the high performance podcast and they had Johnny Wilkinson on same position as you did
00:26:46
um probably almost as brilliant as you did as well at goal kicking and he he was the same sort of thing he's finally
00:26:51
got to a point in life now where he can do things like um go to the Christmas show with his
00:26:55
kids put the ping pong balls in the clown mouth and not be too upset if he doesn't if he doesn't win yeah dad dad
00:27:01
hasn't got to that part I don't I don't think he'll ever get to that point yeah
00:27:05
you'd hope not so um so I mean I don't know if you even thought about it at the time because
00:27:12
maybe maybe when you're a kid it's not one of those things you even think about
00:27:14
but there must have been a massive amount of pressure like growing up with the fox name especially being a rugby
00:27:19
player and playing in the same position yeah I mean I definitely didn't help
00:27:23
myself with with there was always going to be yeah if I'd have gone and played
00:27:27
flanker or something like that it wouldn't have mattered as much you know I was like okay it's Fox's kid but yeah
00:27:32
when you when you play the same position and kick goals as well yeah there's
00:27:35
always going to be that direct comparison and you you know I got I definitely wasn't as good I was okay
00:27:41
at rugby in that sense like I wasn't there was a no shame in not being as good yeah oh yeah I mean yeah it's
00:27:45
pretty hard to live up to that so but was it was it your call to like were you like I want to play that position
00:27:51
someone just like my dad or do you think coaches are like oh I think it was a little bit Yeah I think a little bit
00:27:57
early on it was like okay well your dad was good at this you should know what to
00:28:01
do so you go in there and it just ended up being being me and that's about the
00:28:06
only thing I had over dad as I was a bit better at tackling I was a little bit bigger than him so that's the only thing
00:28:10
I had people thought they could run over me and I wasn't so bad at making them
00:28:14
fall down but he always said he had Michael Jones inside him which was a pretty pretty fair answer he didn't have
00:28:20
to tackle with Michael yeah yeah no that's fair enough um so were you good at Naturally good at
00:28:25
sport growing up were you just one of those annoying kids that you're good at
00:28:27
pretty good at rugby pretty good unfortunately yes I mean my mum's dad played Cricket for New Zealand as well
00:28:32
so move Wallace isn't um played for New Zealand from mid 30s to early 50s so obviously World War II
00:28:39
in between and yeah I've read about this he was you didn't have too much of a he
00:28:43
was quite old pretty old when I was born I had a fair bit to do you know he had a fair bit to
00:28:48
do with my Cricket when I was younger but he was quite ill sort of in my early teenage years lost the sights and stuff
00:28:54
like that so um didn't yeah I think he passed away when I was sort of 20 or 21 but so he
00:29:00
kind of didn't see any of my golf career yeah to an extent but there was definitely sporting chains there my mum
00:29:06
was decent at tennis so we grew up playing oh we'll see yeah not not to any International League or
00:29:15
something like that but she was a good inter Club player and she played a lot of tennis when we were kids
00:29:20
um and you know we played everything growing up I mean rugby and Cricket were my two Bay months cricket
00:29:26
was uh tennis was probably number three and then you know dad always played golf
00:29:30
as well so I kind of I always had golf clubs as a kid and then sort of played joined the club at 13 and
00:29:36
started actually playing properly then and got down to a pretty low handicap for at about 15 and that you know it
00:29:43
just I was just one of those annoying people that you know seen if you ever had a ball I was relatively competent at
00:29:49
it if it was right if it was running like running I'm I'm useless I could run
00:29:54
for something I could run after a ball fine in rugby or run between the rickets and Cricket to an extent but running for
00:30:01
the sake of running didn't get me yeah well maybe you just sounded a bit boring
00:30:05
why I don't I I don't know I just I don't I think it was also one of those
00:30:10
things I was never good at yeah so it was kind of yeah as a you know some of the ball Sports came a little bit easier
00:30:16
so I obviously gravitated towards them a lot more than something I wasn't very
00:30:21
good yeah so okay so so you see you go through school um you're playing you're playing golf
00:30:26
you're playing a bit of tennis you're playing rugby you're playing Cricket
00:30:29
um when when do you drop the other sports when do you reach that sort of like fork in the road well that actually
00:30:34
was at University so I started um I started a law degree at Auckland University I gave up rugby after I left
00:30:41
school I played a year in men's Cricket after I left school and didn't enjoy
00:30:44
that as much as as playing with my mates at school and then I decided that I still needed
00:30:51
something competitive I need I wanted to do something and I played off a two handicap at that point so I was like
00:30:55
okay well let's give golf a crack and see what happens and got some coaching
00:30:59
played my first tournament and I said well in the June or July of my first year university I absolutely loved
00:31:06
it and that was me done so I've finished I didn't finish the law degree I ended
00:31:10
up with an arts degree in Psychology and Mum and that was the one thing if mum and dad were going to support my golf
00:31:15
fight to stay at Uni even though I didn't really go to UNI very much towards the end of it
00:31:20
um I passed I got my degree it was all good um but you know sort of I guess when I was 21 20 or 21 when I first made
00:31:27
the New Zealand Squad and that was when I kind of figured that I had a chance with golf is that quite late yeah yeah
00:31:33
is it yeah I mean you've got you know we've got there's a couple of twins on
00:31:36
tour at the moment the hoi guard twins on the on the European tour and they that one five times between them before
00:31:43
21. yeah and Lydia koshy was world number one when she was like eight or something yeah something like that I
00:31:48
mean but I think she I think she won on on the LPGA at 15 yeah what to be fair women's golf has always been
00:31:56
younger than men's golf in that respect I don't was that a strength thing or
00:32:01
yeah I think obviously you're a bit more fully developed as a woman okay at sort
00:32:06
of 15 16 and what you are as a man yeah yeah it's you don't put on that bulk you
00:32:13
know so a lot and a lot of guys go to college as well in the states and sort of turn probably 21 22. there's still
00:32:19
you know you know Rory McIlroy a few others turned Pro a lot earlier than that but it's it's definitely getting
00:32:25
earlier now than what it was you know it's it's golf used to be especially in the men's
00:32:31
game a relatively old man's game you know mid-30s and Sport mid 30s is relatively old right yeah yeah actually
00:32:40
I was thinking about this this morning um like golfing probably distance running like marathons it's one where if
00:32:45
you're in your 30s it's probably your Peak yeah and golf is still I think I
00:32:50
read something the other day like the average age on the PJ tour of 15 or 20 years ago was like 37 36 or something
00:32:56
and now it's 28. so I think just because there's there's more power everyone's
00:33:03
a bit more athletic I think it's going it's not going to quite go down the road
00:33:08
of all the other sports we're at sort of 35 it's pretty hard to compete but it's
00:33:12
getting harder now and you your shelf life isn't quite as long as what it used
00:33:16
to be in this game yeah just because of the strains on the body yeah yeah yeah um so you mentioned you um yeah you
00:33:21
start doing a law degree then you switched over to psychology does the does that because I feel like off such a
00:33:27
mental game does the psychology degree help you at all these days on not really I mean the biggest thing I had growing
00:33:33
up was I had a I had a sports psychologist anyway right and my old man you know that's it's not
00:33:39
doesn't use the technical terms or anything like that but just the advisable yeah yeah I mean the idea of
00:33:45
routines and the idea of you know dealing how to deal with pressure and stuff like that while
00:33:50
he didn't specifically try to drill it into me at any stage you know he cared
00:33:55
for me a lot when I was playing amateur golf it just kind of it happened yeah yeah actually that's
00:34:00
true there are a lot of parallels between the two aren't there especially goal kicking you know if you think the
00:34:04
ball doesn't move you know it's all you've got to start everything yourself
00:34:07
it's all target oriented it's all kind of a repetitive movement so yes there's
00:34:12
a fair bit in that I think top level sport in general at the highest level is more mental than anything else which is
00:34:19
why you know you'll see lots of teams or whatever get people from other sports
00:34:24
and to to kind of offer advice maybe not the technical side of it but the mental
00:34:28
side of it is very similar across across the board yes but you know we're talking
00:34:31
about Eric Murray earlier you know he talked to Eric in the you know about high performance and Eric said Jack the
00:34:37
lady you know he loves the bear he loves it he loves having a bit of fun but you
00:34:42
get them on the high performance stuff and you can see why he was you know as good as he was because he was he was
00:34:47
really driven and he that he had a really good perspective on how high performance worked yeah right and am I
00:34:54
um did I read somewhere that you your dad put you in touch with Steve Hansen as well and you just some decisions with
00:34:59
him yeah I've been lucky and again I mean it's not many not many people probably had that opportunity what could
00:35:05
Steve Hanson one of the one of the greatest all black coaches ever but what what sort of advice could he offer you
00:35:09
that your dad couldn't um it was just a lot of it was going through how they deal with adversity and
00:35:15
I think you know were you were you going through a patch at the time I was struggling a little bit at the time and
00:35:20
I think it's it was one of those where Steve was really really good as how we articulated it right he was my
00:35:28
man understood it all but the message was a little bit blurry to an extent at for what the All Blacks
00:35:34
were doing whereas obviously Steve Steve had a much more inside grasp of what was
00:35:38
going on but he actually what made him a great coach from from what I could see from the outside as as man management
00:35:45
how we articulated it to his players and I think how we you know he made it really simple for me but you got the
00:35:52
feeling that he could sort of tailor the message to kind of fit the person because everyone's obviously different
00:35:58
in that regard right sure yeah it's it's that's why you've got so many different
00:36:03
sports psychologists around and stuff like that because people needed sort of it's all kind of the same stuff but it's
00:36:09
it's how the how the message is portrayed that you know resonates with with each individual person yeah well
00:36:15
did it give anything that you could pass on that could be useful to anyone that's
00:36:18
listening to this or is it very very specific it was quite specific to be fair um I've got it I could probably find it
00:36:26
I'm I've got it all written down and it was um like is this something that you read
00:36:30
and refer to like the morning yeah I've not necessarily um but I've gone like I've gone back and
00:36:36
looked at it um I think the one the one I remember off the top of my head was they had sort of
00:36:43
the idea of you were a redhead or a blue head and not really oh yeah blue is called when you're losing your call yeah
00:36:50
and yeah it was basically like you know when you're under pressure you've got it
00:36:53
you've pretty much got a choice to be one or the other right you're a redhead
00:36:57
and you lose your call and you you know everything's kind of emotive and you
00:37:02
know happens really quickly or you can be a blue head and um you know be cool calm collected make
00:37:08
the right decisions kind of thing and you can make it a choice so that you know that's kind of what I remember
00:37:16
specifically there was a lot about enjoyment in it as well and finding ways to enjoy the hard stuff that the you
00:37:24
know the going through the hard work even though sometimes it sucks when you're doing it
00:37:30
that's where you get the enjoyment from at the end you know once once you've
00:37:34
gone through it and you get the success all of a sudden the hard work becomes enjoy you know doing that hard work
00:37:39
actually has some enjoyment to it yeah wow that's good so what do you do to reset like a if the red hits say you've
00:37:48
had like a like an absolute [ __ ] of a shot or a hole is this something you do like I know some of the All Blacks like
00:37:53
looked at a person in the crowd or touched the grass or um is there anything particular you do
00:37:59
not not really um just throw your clubs I mean I'm I'll be one to call myself a
00:38:07
few names under my breath yeah I think everyone that's played golf has called
00:38:10
themselves several things that you probably don't want to do otherwise um it's good that you don't under your
00:38:15
breath I've heard tiger do it out loud yeah well he's done a lot worse than
00:38:19
that to be fair I think I think I think we all have on the on the golf course it
00:38:24
gets you big time but um for me it's it's the whole one shot at a time I actually don't for me I
00:38:31
don't it doesn't really matter how you react to a shot it's the it's the
00:38:36
ability to get over it I mean you know there's some guys that are really cool
00:38:39
come and collected you know you think of someone like Fred Couples um that look like nothing ever bothered
00:38:45
him that he could hit the best shot in the world or the worst shot in the world and their action was kind of the same or
00:38:50
you had tiger probably the opposite endure of the spectrum where you know he was he wore us hard on his sleeve to an
00:38:55
extent and he knew exactly what he thought about every golf shot so it's better that you think like it's on the
00:39:00
back of my mind I'm thinking John Daly a guy that's capable of having 15 and a
00:39:05
hole and I would say daily daily let it get to him what I was going to more go down as they tiger and Fred reacted very
00:39:12
differently but what they could do is once they got to a shot is forget about what had happened and
00:39:19
that's kind of the thing you just got to go and regardless of what's happened
00:39:22
you know every your next shot's a new opportunity kind of thing like there's
00:39:27
no point reliving what you've just done or getting angry or whatever so yeah if
00:39:32
you've you can get angry when you hit it but once you get to the next one it's
00:39:36
you've got to be able to reset and that's kind of what you've yeah right
00:39:40
what you've got to do and that's kind of just the process going forward it's just
00:39:44
go it's try to be as simple as possible pick a shot hit a shot and trust it yeah yeah so um did you
00:39:51
start sort of getting into I know you're going to go off before because of your
00:39:54
dad but did you sort of um fall in love with it because of the tiger effect or were you was he set up before your time
00:40:00
a little bit no he was he was definitely um I was about 10 right when he won the
00:40:06
Masters so that was kind of yeah that a professional age yeah yep so yeah we're
00:40:12
getting into golf at the yeah except literally was like tiger Ernie else yeah tiger Phil Mickelson
00:40:17
yeah the Golden Era of golf yeah it's that was a pretty good ERA I mean you look you almost feel sorry to an extent
00:40:25
for guys like Phil and Ernie I mean they would if they were in any other era they
00:40:32
legitimately would have been yeah potentially the best golfers yeah they've ever been or in in that
00:40:37
conversation and all of a sudden you've got someone come in and when tiger was on he made them look
00:40:43
second ranked which is when they made everyone else look second rate I mean it was you talk to some of the guys that
00:40:49
played with tiger in that era and it was scary how good he was have you you ever
00:40:53
played with him you must have been in the same tournament I've played I've
00:40:56
played a few tournaments with them I've played behind him a couple of times in
00:41:00
tournaments I've played a a hole with them in practice which was quite cool I
00:41:04
mean it was at the time where he was really struggling with the back and I think you know he was dosing up on
00:41:10
painkillers pretty pretty hard at the time so I think he was a little bit on a different planet sure but um yeah just
00:41:17
to say that I've I've done it was cool I'd love to play with them in a tournament I mean I know
00:41:22
it's an absolute circus a complete circus but yeah in terms of the crowds that follow yeah yeah but apparently he
00:41:28
was really good at controlling that like he was always regardless of him wanting
00:41:33
to win he was always really respectful of his opponents and he quite often Mark really short putts because he knew if he
00:41:39
if he tapped in the crowd will just disappear to the next hole and leave whoever poor bastard that was putting
00:41:44
with you know this crowd that was uncontrollable so he was he said years to think about it I guess yeah yeah I
00:41:50
mean it's impressive to be under that much scrutiny your whole time and perform the way you
00:41:58
did yeah and I think what makes it even more remarkable like the um the personal life
00:42:02
stuff like when he was when he was when he was banging cocktail waitresses and it was flying girls over to Australia
00:42:07
and had all the stuff going on he was playing phenomenal golf then it was almost like he was invincible at that
00:42:13
point I think yeah I yeah I mean I he seemed to him and the other guy who I spent a lot of time with it seemed to me
00:42:20
that was Shane Ward no matter what was going on off you know the cricket pitch or the golf
00:42:26
course as soon as they got on their respective grounds they managed to block it they could
00:42:32
block everything out and turn it on and no warning would play ashes series you know with whatever going on off the
00:42:39
back and all of a sudden take 40 odd wickets and you know hold up hold the Australian team together kind of thing
00:42:46
you guys you guys um you went close close but you were friends right yeah I knew worn it pretty well played quite a
00:42:51
bit of golf with them and well sorry for your loss earlier this year yeah that must be one of your low points of um
00:42:56
2022 I guess I think it's still a bit of a shot yeah um yeah so what was your relationship
00:43:01
like you text each other yeah yeah um I played a lot when I played a lot of golf with them in the UK played the
00:43:07
dunel links which is a Pro-Am tournament with them every year so you know he was
00:43:12
I I felt like you know if I could I could text him and I knew I'd get a reply so right what that means is a
00:43:19
friendship I don't know but yeah he was an idol of mine growing up I used to
00:43:22
roll a little bit of leg spin um and probably up until about a Saudi we haven't we haven't had a leg spinner
00:43:27
in New Zealand that I can remember for a while so um yeah to be able to call him a mate
00:43:33
and yeah he was he was great fun when we gravitated towards him not one of the Aussie guys
00:43:39
I don't know I mean he he played the Donald links he'd played a bunch of
00:43:43
times and he played with some Aussies and I literally got a text from him one year I think it was 2016 or 2017. he
00:43:49
goes foxy I don't know um if you're Keen but I'd love to pair up with you at Dunhill links this year and
00:43:55
I'm going hey why is morning texting me and B why does he want to play with me
00:43:58
but I'm certainly not going to say no and we got along great and I mean like a couple of years ago
00:44:04
when my daughter was born I said I'm looking forward to to watching she was born just before
00:44:08
Christmas and um you know the ashes series was on and not Aussie at the time I said I'm
00:44:13
looking forward to to watching some cricket and hopefully the little one get some sleeps on me or something on the
00:44:19
couch so I can you know watch watch the cricket and I send him a photo one of the days of my daughter sleeping on me
00:44:24
with the Cricket on in the background and he's like oh perfect just keep listening and he gives us a shout out an
00:44:30
hour later on air and you know my wife and daughter's name and everything like
00:44:34
that and that was just the kind of dude he was but he yeah he was he was fun like that like you could I got onto you
00:44:41
know I had a couple of drinks with him one night I was coughing some stick from some mates I go hey warney can you uh
00:44:46
can we do a video for my mates he's like yep no problem he goes he just goes you
00:44:50
guys are [ __ ] ball bags he pulls the fingers at them and and yeah I seen that video on straight away and you're like
00:44:58
okay that's you know he was he was awesome fun like that he loved absolutely love golf as well but he was
00:45:05
again one of those guys I like Eric in a way like he was a Jack the Lad but if you got him talking about high
00:45:12
performance or something like that you could see why he was so good but he could all he was also just as happy
00:45:17
sitting down talking [ __ ] and having a couple of beers and just talking about completely random stuff he's a
00:45:23
phenomenal guy like you you don't meet actually you know apart from his ex-wife
00:45:27
there's probably no one that's got a bad word to say about him everyone talks
00:45:30
about how he had time for everyone um you must have had some good nights on the piss yeah I kind of tried to stay
00:45:36
away from him a little bit in that respect I think yeah he wasn't as bad he wasn't as bad as
00:45:43
what it was made out to be like but when he went he went half and it was generally
00:45:49
on like vodka red balls or something weird like that like like he wasn't there was
00:45:56
as far as I know there was never he hated drugs yeah um he wasn't he didn't really have too
00:46:03
many beers or anything like that you know he'd have a social beer here and there but when he wanted to push it hard
00:46:07
he was on yeah vodka red balls also like it was something and he would just he would
00:46:15
wreck himself and it was pretty it was pretty funny I did get on the piss with him a couple of times it was he's good
00:46:20
value and some of the stories that would come out would be gold yeah because I I
00:46:24
suppose yeah that's the thing about your sport like you it's one of the few not
00:46:28
that you would but it's one of those sports that you could do um with a hangover yeah I mean it's not
00:46:34
it happens every now and again I probably don't do it very much but this is you know it's probably one guy
00:46:39
tournament that's got a little he's played bad one day and turns up the next
00:46:43
day with a little bit of a hangover it certainly used to happen a lot lot more than it does now yeah
00:46:49
um but yeah I mean it's not you're still out outside for five hours in the sunshine like it's not you still
00:46:55
get whacked pretty hard if you're hungover but you know it's not like trying to run a marathon or or play a
00:47:00
regular game or something something like that so back to warning so we're uh I
00:47:06
just remember being in complete shock when I you know picked up picked up a phone one morning and he was dead in
00:47:10
Bali um do you remember that moment where were you what were you yeah I was hosting a charity event in waihi Beach
00:47:16
it was a fishing and golf thing and I'd woken up early to um to go fishing that morning and I
00:47:24
turned on I think I checked Twitter to start with and if literally the first thing that showed up was warning saying
00:47:31
condolences to Rod Marsh had passed away literally the day earlier and then I'd
00:47:37
got a couple of random texts during the night and I was so so sorry to hear about warning so sorry to hear about
00:47:42
warning I'm like what because all I've seen is that tweet and obviously go go
00:47:46
through I think I tried to find on social media or the news or whatever and found out that he died in Bali and it
00:47:51
was like wall this was surreal it was surreal I mean yeah and you know I didn't go to a
00:47:57
funeral or anything like that I couldn't quite get over for it but uh you know to watch it and hear all the
00:48:03
tributes and you know I kind of felt I'd had a similar experience to a lot of
00:48:08
people with warning like you know you said earlier that he had so much time for people and that's what I kind of
00:48:13
felt like like he'd you know if I ever did well on anything he'd send me a
00:48:17
message you know if I ever sent him a message for anything I just sent him a few messages regarding cricket every now
00:48:23
and again and then back and forth they'd always have time to reply yeah and and
00:48:26
with this funeral it's like [ __ ] he's got a relationship with Ed Sheeran he's
00:48:30
got a relationship with Elson John it's like how does he he was if you if you go on famous people he was
00:48:37
easily other than maybe tiger potentially the most famous tiger Michael Jordan potentially the you know one of the most
00:48:45
famous sports people going around as you said he can't he everyone knew him and
00:48:49
even outside of cricket like they knew who he was in the states which is pretty impressive for
00:48:53
like a non-american sport yeah I mean he was he just I think it was his personality it was
00:49:01
just Larger than Life and he could give everyone a bit of stick and he could have just likability a likable Rogue
00:49:06
yeah he was yeah definitely a rogue but a likable Rogue and um you got any photos with any of these people or
00:49:13
like um I'm thinking Tiger Woods and Shane Warne uh they must be they must be
00:49:17
videos I've got plenty with warning right um you know I've got a photo last
00:49:22
year at Donald links when we played together and it's uh me and my wife our little one who was oh that's eight
00:49:28
months old at the time with with um Ian Botham and and Shane Warne oh yeah that's yeah she's gonna have no idea who
00:49:36
either of them are growing up probably but I shall learn well she'll learn but
00:49:40
yeah it's you know kind of cool and I've been lucky in golf in that respect to be
00:49:44
able to play with so many you know so many sports stars that I've you know grew up idolizing you
00:49:50
know Stephen Fleming Brandon McCullum um you know I had you know where Eric got in Eric obviously
00:49:57
um but you know we had this little Charity day in Auckland last week chasing the fox and you know we had a
00:50:03
bunch of All Blacks bunch of cricketers some Warriors guys you know John John Key yeah got a hole in one and you go
00:50:10
through all of that and you know I'm kind of I'm not the host of that event you kind
00:50:16
of look at it and go how how am I how these guys come out to support me that doesn't make any sense
00:50:22
your fan going over there but that fan killing over you as well yeah yeah I mean and and think that's the cool thing
00:50:28
with golf that it's one of those sports that everyone can play and it seems to be a
00:50:34
pretty popular sport as a downtime for other sports people I think because it's
00:50:39
you know you can play in the golf cart you can you know if you're a rugby player you can just
00:50:45
there's no stress on your body and it's a bit of it's just a bit of fun and it's
00:50:49
nice down Thomas Outdoors it's better than sitting in the hotel room watching
00:50:52
TV or whatever so I think it just seems to be one of those sports that resonates
00:50:56
with other sports people and you know you you play some of those Pro-Am tournaments and you'll be sitting down
00:51:02
with billionaires and you know movie stars and sports people and stuff like that and they look at you for a little
00:51:09
while I just wish I could do that like you do and you're like well I wish I could do a fair bit of stuff like you do
00:51:14
too yeah yeah the feeling's mutual I think that's that's the funny thing
00:51:18
about golf like um to watch it on TV if you've never played golf yourself to
00:51:22
watch it on TV it's the most boring [ __ ] thing ever once you've gone out
00:51:26
there and how to go yourself and you realize just how phenomenal it is what you guys at the top level do you have
00:51:31
like a new appreciation for it yeah it's incredible yeah I mean it's definitely
00:51:34
not it's like test Cricket to an extent if you don't really understand what's going
00:51:40
on it's kind of hard to get the drama of it yeah but if you understand and again
00:51:45
that comes from playing golf that understand how hard some of the shots can be what it's like doing stuff under
00:51:50
pressure I mean anyone that's played golf that's had a five foot putt to beat
00:51:54
their mate for 10 bucks on on a Sunday Morning has felt a little bit of pressure right and all of a sudden you
00:52:01
know you've got that to win a tournament or win a major or you know to beat you
00:52:06
know someone good or whatever that's that's multiplied by a hundred at the
00:52:10
highest level so everyone's kind of got appreciation for it it's kind of I think
00:52:14
once you get that it's it's quite a it's quite a good sport to watch and you can
00:52:18
get especially with the coverage going forward you're going to get a lot more
00:52:23
golf to watch I think than you know they're pushing for you know literally you can follow your favorite player I
00:52:28
think that's what it's going to get to at some point where you can go oh
00:52:30
there's a camera like just on you for the entire so you can go I want to watch
00:52:34
tiger or I want to watch Rory or when someone wants to watch me for some reason that they
00:52:40
you could watch every shot that everyone anyone hits for the tournament and it's
00:52:43
gonna at some stage it's gonna go go that way which is quite cool well of course they're quite alarming as
00:52:50
well are you a nose picker yeah so sometimes do you like put the golf tee in your ear because it feels nice yeah I
00:52:56
mean thinking you have to stop that yeah yeah you just kind of a guess I got what
00:53:02
whatever yeah I get caught doing something like that it's not the worst thing yeah that's true
00:53:06
um okay so let's talk about like the week of a tournament um like like what does that look like so
00:53:11
it goes over four days so usually a Thursday Friday Saturday it's basically a week when you go okay the whole thing
00:53:17
so so you're arriving us but who does all your planning like do you cleaned management and my wife does a fair bit
00:53:23
and I do a little bit so it's kind of right so you're all planned up for for
00:53:27
the 2023 no no I'm I've I'm only got the first four weeks out of the way right so
00:53:33
it's kind of just an ongoing process because it's quite the schedule's quite
00:53:36
flexible in that sense like you know you you might go well this is what I plan to
00:53:41
play in but when it actually gets down to I actually I'm going to play this one
00:53:44
instead of this one and kind of thing so yeah you don't want to you don't want it
00:53:48
too far ahead of you so okay so you'll arrive at a city on Tuesday uh Wednesday
00:53:53
it depends a little bit um travel day is normally a Monday if it's a golf course
00:53:58
I've played before and it's so Europe and we're based in London most of the
00:54:01
time I might travel on a Tuesday morning and then it's probably play nine holes
00:54:07
on a Tuesday do some work with my coach um you know do do some practice as well pro-ams on a Wednesday so you know
00:54:14
playing with the with the sponsors of the tournament or whatever you know there's probably 50 guys that play the
00:54:18
Pro-Am on a on a um on a Wednesday and then you start on so is that by the way is that a pain in the ass or is it just
00:54:26
a news no it's it's normally pretty good like I I enjoy talking as you can
00:54:30
probably tell now um so you know playing a lot of guys who are introverted would find that and it
00:54:36
can be nice it can be really hard especially you know you get to play some in different countries where while it's
00:54:43
great you might have a whole group I've played a couple in China where you get
00:54:47
someone that does a whole group that doesn't speak a word of English so you're just like okay I'm just gonna
00:54:51
play my ball and talk to my caddy and that's it and that's all all part of it
00:54:55
and you get to meet some great people doing it as well so it's yeah you you get the get both sides of the coin in
00:55:01
that respect but yeah I don't mind it I do know there's some guys that do do
00:55:06
struggle with it and then obviously you start up on a Thursday Friday cut Friday Night play Saturday
00:55:13
Sunday and then either disappear Sunday night on all Monday and it kind of depends on if there's a tournament the
00:55:18
next week or you're going back home or whatever yeah and then what about the
00:55:22
evening tournament like do you do you meet up with your caddy after the round for a debrief or anything or it must be
00:55:27
[ __ ] lonely you go for dinner with your caddy or you just eat in your room what do you do not
00:55:32
occasionally um but it's kind of it's a hard one I almost spend more time with my kitty
00:55:38
than I do my wife during the year so if you start throwing dinners on top like it's it's a it's a stressful yeah
00:55:44
environment in that respect so I think if you start doing the off the golf course stuff it kind of bleeds in both
00:55:51
ways like if you if it becomes a less professional relationship yeah harder to yeah and it also becomes he might do
00:55:58
something that pisses you off off the golf course that you take on on the golf course and vice versa so I'm really good
00:56:03
friends with my caddy and I'll hang out with them but we also try to you know
00:56:07
during the week we spend enough time together as it is on the golf course on the practice range
00:56:11
I don't need to have dinner with them too but like I have generally mates that
00:56:15
I have dinner with during the week um and try to do a few of those and you might get one where you've got a really
00:56:21
early start so you'll just sit you know watch TV in a room and have room service
00:56:25
and go to bed early it's I travel with my family most of the time yeah um you
00:56:29
know they probably did from July last year or this year till till I got home they probably did 75 of my tournament so
00:56:37
it's quite cool it's also quite tough for the toddler yeah so your daughter
00:56:42
turns two later this week yeah on on Sunday yeah this week yeah yeah so um yeah that would be yeah that would be
00:56:49
hard because you just want to sleep and you know you've got to keep you've got
00:56:52
to focus but it must also be nice and other ways to have them around because otherwise you'll be lonely yeah it's
00:56:56
it's definitely Lonely by yourself um but it's kind of a nice distraction's
00:57:02
probably the wrong word but it it kind of is it is the right word as well like it's
00:57:07
gotcha when I get back to the golf course or from the golf course it's a it's a really good switch
00:57:13
off right I can go I can hang out with my daughter and you know we can go for a swim or just go out to dinner and I can
00:57:20
leave golf at the golf course like when you're by yourself sometimes you know everyone everyone brings their
00:57:27
work home with them if you do that too much it gets pretty frustrating and especially at the high level of sport
00:57:31
you know if if you're having a bad run and you keep bringing it home there's
00:57:35
just no escape from it so to have to have them travel you know and have some normality there is great I mean I will
00:57:42
say it's nice every now and again having a hotel room by yourself where you can
00:57:46
just go okay I'm just I take my Xbox every now and again well golf not really no I don't play
00:57:54
golf I just play the long I play as you know the long single player games but it's just the it's a nice escape again
00:58:00
for it's a way to go well I can do that like especially if you've got jet lag I can do if I watch TV on an
00:58:08
iPad or whatever I'm just in 10 minutes whereas I can kind of keep myself awake with that if I need to to
00:58:14
for a couple hours and it's again something I can do that I don't really
00:58:18
think about anything else and that's as bad as that sounds where lots lots of
00:58:23
people use golfers and escape from everyday life that's true I've got to
00:58:27
find other ways to do it when I'm back home it's fishing when it's overseas
00:58:31
it's you know having the family around the easy the normal way but if I don't
00:58:35
have them it's you know get the Xbox out and go kill something on Xbox for a while
00:58:41
how did you and your wife meet um we actually met at a sports psychology class at University oh [ __ ]
00:58:48
what's your name so she we was in a mutual friend of mine's birthday party 21st birthday party and
00:58:58
um one of her friends had bought my wife along and um then we found out where in the same
00:59:07
we're in the same class at Uni I hadn't been here Jen's seen me because yeah no one has
00:59:15
seen me I hadn't been there and then this friend that brought her along had done the class the semester before us so
00:59:23
she kind of she basically set us up she said okay well I've got my notes from
00:59:26
the previous semester do you guys want to use them I'm like [ __ ] yes I haven't
00:59:30
been to class yet and annika's like oh yeah okay and then so we met up for coffee so I could basically steal some
00:59:36
University notes off her and happen from there amazing amazing so you that was when you were you were just sort of
00:59:44
getting into your golf yes I think I was playing for New Zealand at the time so I
00:59:51
mean my mom my wife hasn't known we've been together for almost 15 years now
00:59:55
yeah so she hasn't known anything different like in terms of amateur professional golf I seriously go away a
01:00:02
shitload I'll be away most weekends I'd go I did a couple of long trips to the
01:00:05
states for like three months so it was normal for us to be apart right from the outset so it's quite good in that regard
01:00:12
she kind of understands though the life of the life of it right you know and she's been really good and
01:00:18
really supportive and has enjoyed the travel as well it's yeah it's been
01:00:23
it's a weird lifestyle in that sense but it's it's kind of been normal for us
01:00:28
from the start so it's a little bit a little bit easier I think it would have
01:00:31
been harder you know if you're high school sweethearts or something and together and then all of a sudden I'm
01:00:35
you're welcome away I think that would be a hard Dynamic to deal with but once
01:00:39
you kind of if you start that way it kind of doesn't really yeah it's that
01:00:44
way yeah it makes it easier so she's a psychologist uh no she did um she ended up doing a finance degree
01:00:50
right so she was a banker for a while and um in 2015 I started playing in Europe
01:00:58
um and I did most of that travel just from here and then was like it's just too brutal
01:01:03
um so I wanted to get a base in London the next year she was pretty Keen to come up anyway my sister lived in London
01:01:09
we had a lot of friends up in London so she's like oh you know I'll get a job up
01:01:13
in London and in the bank somewhere and we arrived six weeks before the brexit vote and told she tried to get a
01:01:20
job got told look we're not hiring just wait till the brexit votes goes away
01:01:23
because no one in London thought that brexit would actually happen yeah yeah and then brexit happened and all of the
01:01:28
contracting jobs that was her kind of specialty in London disappeared so she actually ended up traveling with me for
01:01:34
for that year she carried for me in a few events and she traveled she's pretty much traveled
01:01:39
around ever since and um you know I've been lucky enough I've done a ride out
01:01:43
of it that we kind of haven't needed two salaries or anything like that and there's been a couple of dicey periods
01:01:49
where it was you know my golf was a bit but average and we're burning some money
01:01:53
but thankfully it had a couple of good years previous so it kind of it evens itself out in the end God it's a
01:01:59
stressful existence isn't it yep yep it really is yeah you must be yeah you must
01:02:03
feel you seem super relaxed at the moment and uh you know that must be a good place to be I'm getting there it
01:02:10
takes me a good like week to 10 days after the end of a season to kind of get down I've probably got two two weeks
01:02:18
of being down and then I've got to try to get up again to yeah to start the season off but yeah it's I think in in
01:02:25
general I mean in all walks of life there's you know if you're at the top level it's pretty
01:02:31
stressful whether it's in business or sport or or Media or whatever you know
01:02:35
you've got there might be slightly different stresses but they still do the yeah still have the same effects so you
01:02:41
get used to it and I'm certainly not complaining I love it but yeah you you do enjoy the down time yeah I mean after
01:02:49
a good good year like 2020 it has been for you it must be nice it's like I think [ __ ] I've got a bit of a buffer
01:02:54
here um I can just spend the next week while concentrating on the golf not worrying
01:02:58
about the [ __ ] that's going on in the background yeah I've I have noticed that
01:03:01
I mean you know I'm sitting here with you right now like this I think as you
01:03:05
do better there's a lot more stress on your time so it's you've got to be a bit
01:03:09
better at time management and um I'm still kind of learning that to an extent like say last year I came home
01:03:15
after an okay year and did a couple of little radio interviews and I could sit on my ass for for two months kind of
01:03:22
thing and that's certainly not happened this year but it's it's also good it's a
01:03:27
part you know a victim of your own success and you know it's just I've just
01:03:31
got an I gotta know that I've gotta you know still get time with the family I still want to
01:03:37
go out fishing when I'm allowed to and so you know just kind of schedule those in and that's a bit more weather
01:03:43
dependent than anything else you know catch up with mates I love getting on the barbecue so do a fair bit of that so
01:03:49
you know it's just I don't think I quite get to switch off as much as I used to
01:03:53
but it's still nice to be home and yeah absolutely and you know the Kiwi lifestyle is a little bit less stressful
01:03:59
than some of the other places around the world absolutely now um one one thing that's a reasonably big focus on this
01:04:05
podcast that I like to bring up with all the guesses um is their their mental health how's yours been for the most
01:04:10
part over the years a um for the most part pretty good I mean yeah I think it's it's especially
01:04:16
important with you because it's such a mental [ __ ] game yeah I mean I've had
01:04:19
I've gone through bad runs and you know you've pointed out you know I've had
01:04:23
chats to Steve Hanson I've had a couple of chats to John kirwan about it when I
01:04:26
was really down in the dumps and to your your low points or your Rock Bottom it's
01:04:30
been sort of golf related it's all golf related really yeah I mean it's yeah I
01:04:35
talked about taking taking it home I think I got to a point a couple of times where I was once early on in my career
01:04:42
second year out where I really I didn't have any fun in what was going on I I
01:04:46
kind of hated the game and I was ready to give it up and Dad carried for me for a week and tried to just make it fun
01:04:53
again I had a good result kept my kept my card for the following year and then had sort of a six or eight
01:04:58
week break and kind of reassess things I thought well I actually still want to keep doing this I don't really want to
01:05:03
get a normal job and thankfully you know I got through that period and had a another period in 2019
01:05:11
um which is when you when I think looked back on it it was kind of weird I I came
01:05:16
off um I'd won early in 2019 and then we got married about a month after that went on
01:05:24
a great honeymoon in South Africa and then came back and I missed seven Cuts in a row
01:05:28
and there was a lot of you must start to see your self-doubt must creep in a big way that got me I
01:05:36
was really really hating life at that point which you know at that point I shouldn't be but I just I couldn't get
01:05:42
out I was playing bad and there was a little there was other stuff that was causing it to be fair it
01:05:48
wasn't I changed Orthotics and the Orthotics had upset my balance and that was having a massive effect I thought it
01:05:55
says like little pads in your shoes yeah because I've got really flat feet that
01:05:58
you can't see on here but they're not real uh then not they're not oh
01:06:04
it slides off and hold them up Dougie can you get a close-up on um the left one the left one shot so it's
01:06:10
pretty bad right I don't I literally don't have an arch on my left foot that's kind of weird but right
01:06:18
um yeah okay we're gonna put that on only fans yeah so yeah I'd like I went and then you know
01:06:27
in hindsight that was the thing that affected my golf game it you know balance is pretty important I think in
01:06:32
All Sport but golf it's really important and you know I've done I'd have the same
01:06:36
set of orthotics for like 10 years previous and I changed them and all of a sudden that upset everything and my golf
01:06:41
swing went South and then that affected how I played but then that sort of went into the mental state and that was a
01:06:48
nice little downward spiral that I was yeah after all this good stuff that had happened I was
01:06:54
you know through the middle of 2019 I was hating what I was doing and ready to give it up
01:06:58
and some did it sort of seep into other areas of your life as well yeah unless we're a grumpy [ __ ] basically yeah and
01:07:04
which you know I I've been lucky I haven't had any depression in that sense
01:07:10
yes but it's you know when that gets I mean I started having studied psychology you know the the science for
01:07:21
depression and the science for you know grief you know say a family member dying are
01:07:27
very very similar yeah it's pretty you know it's probably changed since I was
01:07:31
at University but it's like you know where there used to be some textbook that used to give all the stuff for
01:07:38
depression and then there was all these exemptions if you'd had a family member
01:07:42
die and this and that and that and I was probably in that that I probably had some of the symptoms of it but it was
01:07:47
more work related than you know straight depression in that sense so it was yeah
01:07:54
it was it was tough but it was you know I kind of figured out a few things later
01:07:58
in the year started playing a bit better Golf and got a bit better at compartmentalizing it you know I had a
01:08:04
few chats to JK at that time and you know he's he said some and he said it and the media as well that he always
01:08:11
used to equate how he was as a rugby player as how he was as a person and that's kind of not the case and I
01:08:17
probably did that and probably still do it to an extent with golf but it's hard
01:08:21
yeah it's hard to avoid though isn't it when you when you're that good at what
01:08:24
you do well and I think you know if if you look at you know how you know out my family lives everything
01:08:32
has revolved around my golf in that sense like you know we travel because of my golf we do this I do
01:08:40
everything around golf so it's it's kind of hard regardless to to separate away
01:08:48
from that so I and especially when you're playing bad it's even it's even
01:08:52
harder to do that and I I really struggled with at that point and definitely had some some tough times
01:08:58
during covert as well um you know all the travel restrictions coming out of here in 2021 oh yeah we
01:09:05
were normal on tour um you know whereas you know we were still not letting anyone in and I think I was
01:09:13
pretty vocal in the media a couple of times yeah well I remember you had a spray about that an uncharacteristic
01:09:18
spray I just I just lost the plot to be honest I got to apply into your tether yeah where it was just I'm
01:09:25
you know I'd seen what it was like overseas and I think a lot more kiwis have seen that this year and that you
01:09:31
know the middle of last year covert really wasn't a thing anywhere in the world by New Zealand and Australia and
01:09:36
China kind of thing and we're still doing quarantine and we've still got
01:09:40
that stupid Lottery system which I don't think anything I don't think anyone
01:09:44
thought that was a good idea to be honest absolutely not and I I ended up being a benefactor of it I ended up
01:09:49
getting a spot and going overseas and uh I I I know that's that's I mean you
01:09:54
don't hate the player I hate the game yeah um but it's unfair that I was um
01:09:59
fighting for spots the same as people that would you know hoping to see family members that were dying you know we you
01:10:05
know there was people in way worse positions of what I was but I'm sorry I sort of looked at it in the fact that
01:10:11
you know my job was completely normal I had to keep a job it's not like I could say hey
01:10:17
look I'm a bit stuffed here you know can you I I can't make it overseas you know can
01:10:24
we just keep going next year that's not how it works on tour so I had to I had
01:10:28
to keep a job last year and I'm going well I don't know if I leave the country if I
01:10:32
can get back in I've got a one-year-old you know I don't know if I can get
01:10:37
uh to start with they couldn't come to tournaments so they weren't going to
01:10:40
come to the states and then I'd come to the UK sorry and then when they could come to tournaments they
01:10:45
all came over and then we go well how do we get back home and I'm still trying to
01:10:49
fight for my job at that point to make sure I had a job for this year and all of that just kind of
01:10:55
got to I I wouldn't never got to the point of what I was probably not 2019 but I was really struggling with that
01:11:03
whole concept and I think that's why I probably lashed out all right it was frustration it was and
01:11:10
you know there was as I said there was lots of people worse off than me but I kind of felt like at that point I had a
01:11:16
little bit of a platform to say something and you know that regardless of whether people agree with me or not
01:11:22
you know everyone's got an opinion and that was my opinion on it that we you
01:11:26
know after seeing the rest of the world that you know shutting shutting everyone
01:11:30
out in New Zealand and not having other options like home isolation or something
01:11:34
like that was was pretty frustrating and you know when you see I was at the Olympics last year and saw you know
01:11:41
there was plenty other New Zealand athletes who couldn't go to world Champs because they couldn't get quarantine
01:11:47
spots and stuff like that and I you know I'd been one of the people that had just
01:11:50
gone and gone overseas and just gone well I'll try my life I'm gonna try my
01:11:54
luck and you know I was like you maybe not quite this I I got a spot eventually I mean I think I'd at one
01:12:01
stage I'd been in every single Lottery they'd been and not been below 20 000
01:12:06
places or something like that and we eventually got a spot um in late October last year and that
01:12:11
was purely because we were quite flexible at that point we're like if we get if we can get in the room
01:12:17
whatever even if it's tomorrow I'll go kind of thing and that's pretty much
01:12:22
what it what it boiled down to so yeah the last couple of years in that respect were were
01:12:28
were challenging but I I think it was easier to to deal with that because it was factors
01:12:34
outside of my control yeah yeah and that's probably why it was also so frustrating because it was factors
01:12:39
outside of my control and then you know that's probably made what's happened
01:12:42
this year even a bit sweeter in that regard to deal with all the crap that's
01:12:46
gone down and then you know Nick this year you know to sort of ride the wave the other way and and
01:12:53
have a great year on you know and and all of those other stresses go away has been quite nice yeah so you should just
01:12:59
focus on the the task in hand what's your um what's your inner voice an inner
01:13:03
critic you like for the most part you mentioned before when you have a bad shot you can be hard on yourself but for
01:13:07
the most part Ryan Fox is he pretty are you quite nice to yourself or are you quite tough on yourself I would say I'm
01:13:13
generally quite nice to myself apart from golf which I think as long as you can do that and
01:13:21
compartmentalize it I guess yeah like I'm I'd say I'm generally quite
01:13:25
optimistic and quite positive about things but yeah if I had a bad shot in golf I'll know about it but as long as then
01:13:33
as we talked about before you can get to the get to the move up and go to the ball for your next shot and put it
01:13:38
behind you yeah and it's not necessarily it's not it's like I don't take it too hard in
01:13:47
that respect like I can it's in perspective it's you know had a bad shot
01:13:51
get angry forget about it and you know sort of don't let it get to me anymore but I just
01:13:56
can't help it I mean I as I said I think everyone playing golf no matter how
01:14:01
calm you are everyone playing golf has lost the plot at themselves and I think the the better you are at it it just
01:14:07
gets to you more and more the longer you do it it gets to you more and more kind
01:14:10
of thing yeah because there's a guy I remember like growing up when uh that I
01:14:13
used to watch on TV um I can't remember the exact story but Ian Baker Finch the Australian guy so one of
01:14:20
the best in the world right yeah and then um and then he just he he woke up one day and couldn't play anymore yep
01:14:26
just and that's tournament golf so right I know um is that pretty much the story
01:14:29
like um I I think I read about him in one of his last games he shot something like close to 100 which is was if
01:14:36
probably what I'd shoot on a very good day and then he went to the locker room
01:14:39
and cried and that was the last time he played yeah so he can play socially now I know I know Ian well enough so what
01:14:44
was this what was this world ranking like I mean he won he won the British Open at Saint Andrews in 1991. okay so
01:14:51
he was good and then when did he a couple years later yeah so he went back no he didn't win the British Open
01:14:58
sorry he won the British Open I don't I don't know where it was and he went back the following he might have
01:15:04
won a 90 and went back the following year and 91 at St Andrews and headed out of bounds off the First Tee which is one
01:15:11
of kind of the it's known as the widest hole in golf like no one can do that and he did it
01:15:17
yeah and but that's kind of the doubt like he can do it but it's sort of it's
01:15:22
sort of one of those things that at that level it's kind of unheard of and that
01:15:27
was kind of the start of his downfall when I heard stories from from guys you know just before he gave the game up
01:15:34
that he would he'd play a practice round with them on a hard golf course and you
01:15:39
know they'd play for money and it'd absolutely tell them up you know he'd
01:15:42
shoot 66 like it was nothing take their money and turn up on a Thursday and he just couldn't play tournament golf he
01:15:49
struggled and that's that's all mental it's all mental and that's
01:15:53
there's lots of I mean The Yips is a thing in golf you know right is that what it's called The Yips yeah I don't
01:16:00
know if he had The Yips per se but there's you know yeah there's you know
01:16:03
guys that get over and can't hit apart it's literally it becomes physiological
01:16:07
in the end they get over a three foot part and go and it's it's quick and
01:16:11
jabby and you you know you kind of shudder when you look at it and people have it chipping people have it with
01:16:16
driver it's it seems I don't know if it's as common in other sports yeah I could imagine Maybe
01:16:25
I could imagine you know something like big wave surfing or or like car racing where you've had a close
01:16:33
call and all of a sudden you can't quite push yourself or maybe in cricket if you
01:16:38
get yeah yeah whereas you know when you think of golfers kind of nothing dangerous per se right
01:16:46
like getting hit with someone else's ball yeah and like when you think about it it
01:16:52
kind of doesn't make sense but I think because golf is so mental and I think
01:16:57
it's one of those games that it's not reactionary so you know if I throw your ball right
01:17:02
now you just catch it right that's what happens you don't think about where you
01:17:06
have to put your hands or what you do you just catch it in golf because that ball doesn't move
01:17:10
you've gotta you've got time to think about what you actually do and I think that's why you
01:17:17
it's more prone to stuff like that that you know you've got all those thoughts
01:17:22
have a chance to get in you and then you know in sport anything that you do that's
01:17:27
conscious is harder to do you know you want everything to be almost unconscious right like just a pure reaction to
01:17:34
whatever's in front of you when when you you know you talk about people that have done
01:17:40
exceptional things in sports all about being calm and being in the moments and stuff like that and you try to get in
01:17:46
that PL in that place in golf but it's also primed the other way because you've
01:17:51
got so much time to think about what's going on it's and I think that's where
01:17:54
it comes from like yeah is that do you think in hindsight that's what happened
01:17:58
to you when you had that run of missing seven Cuts in a row not necessarily um I was just oh like there was definitely
01:18:06
some of it like you put more external pressure on yourself and you're like well this you know this is to make a cut
01:18:11
I missed a bunch of cuts by one you know bogey the last hole must have cut by one
01:18:15
kind of [ __ ] and yeah that's that's mental I didn't get to a point where I
01:18:20
couldn't find the golf course I couldn't hit it on the golf course so it wasn't
01:18:23
you were there or thereabouts I could still hit it but it just that all that little stuff was just
01:18:29
there's just too much noise right when you play your best there's no there's no
01:18:34
noise it's all very quiet and all very kind of easy and you know even when you're under pressure
01:18:40
you can kind of trick yourself to not worry about it too much but when you know if you're in a bad State mentally
01:18:47
then all that little stuff builds up and it just becomes a bit too hard and obviously
01:18:51
you know there's been instances you know Ian Baker Finch is what there's been
01:18:55
plenty of other guys in the same boat as him that you know literally got to a point where they they couldn't
01:19:01
cope with the pressure playing tournament golf yeah so so it used it as I don't want to put words in your mouth
01:19:06
but are you sort of saying like when you had that bad run um maybe you know you'd go up to the
01:19:10
ball and you're thinking about a lot of different things but when you're in that
01:19:13
flow State like you have been for the past year um you just go up to the ball and it's
01:19:16
just Instinct yeah and that's what you're trying like it's I think it's
01:19:20
hard to be interesting fully instinctual anyway because you know you've just got
01:19:24
so much time I mean you've played golfers you stand there and you go I don't want to hit it here and I don't
01:19:28
want to hit it here so it's quite it's quite hard to get to that point but that's what you kind of aim for and
01:19:36
you just get the better you are at it the better you get it tricking yourself to be in that mindset or to find a way
01:19:43
to to not think about the bad stuff you know for me this year it was pretty much
01:19:48
go out and try to beat the golf course don't think about anything else and it's
01:19:51
inherently simple but it's inherently complex as well when you if you break it
01:19:55
down you know you you're getting rid of all that noise you just trying to be comfortable and it you know
01:20:02
it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be you just have to get it done kind of
01:20:07
thing and it's that's the idea of you know getting rid of the noise yeah okay wow
01:20:14
that's fascinating isn't it that's uh yeah I mean what the the top level of
01:20:19
sport like it well there's probably a few but I I think yeah just the difference is that
01:20:26
the ball not moving really it's it's probably a bit more mental than a lot of
01:20:31
other sports in that regard and I think we've also got you know a lot of different skills to
01:20:36
master you know putting is so different than chipping is so different than bunkers are so different with driver you
01:20:41
know there's there's a lot of different little aspects to it and that's I think
01:20:45
that it's a game you never conquer I think that's what I I yeah what you hate
01:20:51
and what you love about the game and the same in the same instance right like you
01:20:55
can hit a perfect golf shot right I can go I want to hit thus and literally pull it off perfectly
01:21:02
but you can't you can't ever be perfect you know we talk about Eric right
01:21:08
Eric and Hamish Bond were perfect right not what was it oh never yeah 67 for 67 or something like that yeah
01:21:16
yeah over many years yeah you know you can't do it that golf's just not that
01:21:20
you know you can't you know a golfer lives for a perfect shot and you know we still don't hit
01:21:26
perfect shots all the time we might have a few more than most average amateurs but our Bears just not
01:21:32
as bad but we still live for that one that you're like oh why can't I do that
01:21:36
every time yeah well mate as someone that's played a lot of golf in their 20s usually
01:21:41
shooting between like 100 and 110. I found it the most frustrating thing in the world and there there'd be holes
01:21:47
where I shoot like eight nine ten but then you have one shot where it feels like you're hitting it like Ernie else
01:21:53
and it just flies off the club and it goes where it's supposed to and that was
01:21:56
all it took to keep me coming back the next time that is that's the golf bug
01:22:00
right there you know it's but you have you have at least one of those shots every hole no not necessarily every hole
01:22:06
you just get you the parameters of it get a bit different right like you know you
01:22:15
I had a lot of good shots when I play a lot but I don't hit a lot of I mean my definition of Perfect's probably
01:22:25
slightly different than what your average golfers definition of perfect green and regulation is perfect yeah so
01:22:31
so like in a sense I probably only hit the same amount of perfect shots in that sense
01:22:37
for what I see in my head but obviously I had a lot of shots that I'm not disappointed with in that sense as well
01:22:45
so it's yeah it's just I mean there's lots of quotes about golf's not about
01:22:49
you know how good your good shots are it's how good your bad shots are and that's kind of what
01:22:55
what we do well as professionals you just have a lot you still have bad shots but your bad shots just aren't anywhere
01:23:01
near as bad as what they are otherwise yeah okay so 2023 um obviously you want to the the I
01:23:07
suppose the goal or the dream or the Hope or the West whatever you want to call it is to build on what you've done
01:23:11
in 2022 um so the end of 2023 if everything goes to plan what would have happened
01:23:19
um probably have a PJ tour card for next year so um that means you plan the states yes
01:23:24
I'll get a chance to play a bunch of the bigger events in the states with being
01:23:28
in the top 50 in the world rankings and basically that's the you know the goal
01:23:32
next year it's going to be tough it'll be like playing a major championship
01:23:36
every week you know they'll be on the best golf courses there on the strongest
01:23:40
fields and everything's new as well right you know I had this I'll be playing a lot of events I've never
01:23:45
played a lot of golf courses I've never played before so what do you mean exactly is it can you give it like a
01:23:50
simple answer to that because most people listen to this and be like you know there's the flag there's the green
01:23:55
there's the the bunker it's it's kind of like it's it's kind of like
01:24:00
going to a new house right you know if you you said you moved in here not long ago yeah you put stuff in a drawer when
01:24:08
you when you're setting it up and then it takes you a few weeks to kind of remember where everything is
01:24:16
right you know and then you've been in you know you do it enough times you could do it drunk in the dark you can do
01:24:23
it drunk and blindfold if it's easy right it's kind of the same on a golf
01:24:26
course you know I could play my home course in my head right now tell you what everything does and I don't
01:24:33
even have to look at it I know where everything is I don't have to but you know we've got to go to a golf
01:24:39
course arrive on a Monday play it Tuesday or Wednesday or both and then Tee It Up and play it in competition on
01:24:46
a Thursday you're still fiddling around with those drawers trying to figure out
01:24:50
where everything is right you know again you you you're good at it like it's our
01:24:55
job we're supposed to be good at it but you know you're playing against guys
01:24:58
still an unfamiliar environment yeah yeah so you know say go to go to the Masters next year right it'll be my
01:25:05
first time there Tigers played what 20 of them one at however many times you've probably played more than 20 to
01:25:14
be honest you probably play 30 close to 30 of them now you know he's obviously
01:25:17
going to have a much better knowledge of that Golf Course over the years than what I do yeah so it's
01:25:24
it's not that it's not a fair playing field it's just you know experience
01:25:28
matters that's you know it's the same for a rugby player you know in your first test
01:25:34
yeah or your first season playing test rugby everything's going to be new all
01:25:39
the grounds are going to be new they've all got little intricacies and you know
01:25:42
you're still trying to figure out ways to deal with the atmosphere and whatever
01:25:46
and then you know you go 10 years down the line and you've just got all your
01:25:50
processes down packed how you deal with it and you know it's not you may not
01:25:54
necessarily be a better player or whatever but you you can get yourself to the same
01:25:59
point a lot easier than what you used to be able to you know you can get this that same level it's kind of it's the
01:26:05
same for us for golf you know I can go play a bunch of events in Europe that I've played five six seven times I've
01:26:12
got a really good memory for golf courses and you know it just makes the practice and everything a lot easier
01:26:17
knowing the golf course so you know next year is going to be a bit more challenging in that regard where you
01:26:23
know especially for the first half of the Year all the golf courses I'm going
01:26:26
to are going to be brand new and you'll be trying to take a little bit to to
01:26:31
figure out how to play them [ __ ] how exciting though oh yeah can you win a major
01:26:36
yeah definitely yeah I mean it's it's hard obviously but if it was easy everyone would be doing it yeah but I
01:26:42
feel like I've felt for a while now but especially after this year that if I
01:26:46
play my best golf I can compete with anyone in the world it's just you know in that situation
01:26:51
it's trying to not let the situation get the better of you which is much easier
01:26:56
said than done but you know just get out of your own way get rid of all the noise
01:27:00
and try to beat the golf course and I'd you know hopefully can get myself in
01:27:04
that position you know this year next year whenever it is and you know if you give yourself a chance anything can
01:27:09
happen oh man how good how good I don't know if this is something that um plays
01:27:13
on on on on your mind at all but uh after growing up being Grant Fox's son it must be nice that he's now your dad
01:27:21
awesome dad I still don't know about that I mean you know we're a rugby mad country in
01:27:29
that sense but um I mean it's I think it's pretty cool to say that I've got three generations
01:27:34
in my family that's representing New Zealand in three different sports I don't think there'd be too many other
01:27:38
families worldwide that could say could say that that you know and and the Saints and the same sport potentially
01:27:45
but when you've got qriket rugby and golf you know that they don't get a
01:27:49
whole lot different than the three of those so it's you know that's that's
01:27:52
pretty cool so there'll be no pressure on my kids at all a daughter who uh mentioned before tends
01:28:00
to in a couple of days are you planning to have more yeah we've got another one
01:28:03
on the way actually oh congratulations yes so just make next year a bit more hectic so I got one during my
01:28:09
oh amazing do you know what the sex is you know keeping that a surprise so yeah that's gonna gonna be nice and busy
01:28:15
um so I don't know what next year looks like travel wise for the family um you know one's hard enough I can
01:28:21
imagine traveling with two is going to be chaos so we'll see where that goes
01:28:25
well you're gonna need to start getting the hotels with the adjoining room oh we
01:28:28
already do that there's nothing worse than putting it putting a kid down to bed at eight
01:28:33
o'clock and sitting in a dark room just watching Netflix on your phone yeah pretty much all right hey Ryan Fox thank
01:28:42
you so much for taking the time to come over today I've thoroughly enjoyed it
01:28:45
it's been amazing it's been great thanks Tom oh one final thing can you um would
01:28:48
you better sell my balls I got two just I got two just for that reason I like the fact that one's a one well one's
01:28:56
definitely been eaten by the dog yeah one's that one's a little bit rougher
01:28:59
than the other oh dear oh you're actually silent yeah I just wanted to say that line for a joke but
01:29:08
you've done this before I have yeah they're not that hard to sign and I haven't signed a Top Flight for a while
01:29:13
I haven't used one of those since I was about 10 years old oh is that right yeah
01:29:16
it's on the bottom of my golf bag so that was yeah when you attend that's
01:29:20
probably the last time they were the old uh we used to call them rocks right yeah
01:29:25
but they're great as a 10 year old because you could they didn't cost very
01:29:28
much and you can find them anywhere maybe that was my issue I had the wrong balls yeah
01:29:33
they do they do make a difference I'll tell you that all right hey you're an
01:29:38
absolute Legend man um 2020 has been a phenomenal year and um hopefully this is just the beginning of a
01:29:43
um you know a very big rise into reaching your Peak I hope so I mean we're lucky in golf that it's you know
01:29:50
still got a career in your mid-30s so hopefully it continues that way yeah how good all right cheers mate thanks Tom
01:29:55
cheers [Music]