Golf: Freak injury sidelines Ryan Fox in Europe

He didn’t get hit by a golf ball and he didn’t slide down the stairs.

Ryan Fox describes the knee injury that has sidelined him from two of the biggest events on the DP World Tour
calendar as the “most boring story you can imagine”.

The 35-year-old was at his home near Wentworth on Friday night, the day the BMW PGA Championship was postponed due to the Queen’s death.

“I was walking around the kitchen table on my way out to the grill and twisted my right knee a little bit and something grabbed me and pretty much couldn’t walk for the rest of the night,” Fox told the Herald.

“It didn’t get much better on Saturday and I couldn’t walk the course, let alone play 18 holes, so unfortunately I had to retire. I’ve retired. [from the Italian Open] on doctor’s prescription after an MRI scan showed that I had partially torn the meniscus in my right knee.”

It is frustrating for Fox, not least because his parents had traveled to Britain to watch him in four of the biggest tournaments on the calendar, but also because the Italian Open in Rome, which starts on Thursday night, is played on the same course as the Ryder Cup. will be held next year.

“We have Rory McIlroy playing, I think, Fitz [US Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick] player. So I think a couple of guys are scouting out before next year and I definitely would have liked to go down there. But it’s also a pretty brutal walk and I wasn’t sure I could even walk the golf course.

“So it was better to take another week off and figure out a plan going forward.”

Fox saw a specialist today and says all indications are that there is no surgery and he should be set to return next week.

“I can walk around the house without too much pain, which is good. And hopefully later this week I can try it out with some golf swings and walk around the golf course.”

Fox is now targeting a comeback at next week’s French Open at Le Golf National in Paris, which hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018 and is a course where he has played well in the past.

“I had a sixth there in the French Open a few years ago. It’s probably the toughest golf course we play all year – there’s a lot of water, a lot of trouble. So it’s going to be interesting to go in there a little bit cold after I’ve been supposed to play two weeks of golf leading up to it.”

Fox played a lot of golf leading up to the 150th Open Championship in mid-July, which included three majors, but has since played only seven rounds of competitive golf.

“I haven’t played a lot of golf and I saw a really busy end to the year playing four weeks in a row, a week off and another couple in a row, a week off and then four in a row to end the year.

“But this has changed the plans a little bit. And it’s kind of ironic, I play all this golf without a problem and hurt myself walking around the house.”

All going well with his recovery, Fox plans to play next week’s French Open and then the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland (September 29-October 2) before taking a week off to play the Andalucía Masters at Valderrama in Spain (September 13). -16 October). ).

Despite his lack of recent tournament play, Fox still sits seventh in the DP World Tour standings and 47th in the world rankings.

“Luckily it hasn’t hurt me too much on the order of merit or anything missing the weekend at Wentworth and this week in Rome and I can still kind of challenge for that DP World title at the end of ​the year.”

Fox hopes to maintain his ranking in the world’s top 50, which would secure a first start at the Masters next year, the one major he has yet to play.

“There’s still enough golf to do that and I’ve still got some big events coming up and plenty of world ranking points to play for. I’m in a position where there’s no point playing if I’m not fit .

“Hopefully I can, I can do a little bit of work at the end of this weekend and the beginning of next week and really start to find some form again and make a big push and stay in the top 50 at the end of the year.”