With a surname like Fox it’s not surprising that he’s on the run. The BMW PGA Championship may be the focus of golfing affairs this week but Graham Fox has other duties on his mind before he can begin to ponder that one
The 38-year, one of three Tartan Tour campaigners in the field for the European Tour’s flagship event, is currently contesting the domestic circuit’s P&H Championship at the Renaissance club in East Lothian and will not travel south to Wentworth until that tournament concludes tomorrow night.
The former Scottish PGA champion will then tee-up over the famed West Course the following day after the kind of frantic charge that used to be the reserve of the Light Brigade.
“I’m on the last plane down from Glasgow on Wednesday night,” said Fox, who is attached to the Clydeway Golf Centre at Uddingston. “It’s a sticky situation. There are not a huge amount of order of merit events on the Tartan Tour so if you miss one you’re kind of snookered for getting into the PGA Play-offs at the end of the season. And of you don’t get in those then you don’t have another chance of getting back to Wentworth the following year so I really had to play at the Renaissance.
“It’s not an ideal build up for me. Sometimes it works in your favour, though. You just get there, you don’t get involved in the general circus and you just appear under the radar and do your thing.”
With a whopping prize pot of almost £4 million, Fox is well aware that a good week in the Surrey stockbroker belt can bring huge financial rewards.
“For us PGA pros it’s a potentially life changing week really,” added Fox, who was part of the GB&I team that won the PGA Cup in California last September. “If you can make the cut, then you have a chance to make a really good cheque. But you try not to think about that too much.
“In a way, getting there late and just getting started takes a bit of the pressure off. There’s a huge carrot being dangled in front of you in terms of the money that’s on offer but when you just turn up and play you’re expectations are not as high and you don’t mull over what’s at stake.”
And as for the lack of practice? “I’ve got two kids now so I don’t get time to practice anyway,” he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here