Foxxy shot: Ryan Fox returns to site of his 'perfect' shot, so good they made a plaque

RBC Canadian Open defending champion Ryan Fox conceded that his four-hole playoff last year against Sam Burns was “a bit of a pillow fight,” until he took matters into his own hands and ripped a cut 3-wood from 269 yards at the par-5 18th to 8 feet to set up the winning birdie.

>“It’s the best shot I have ever hit,” recalled Fox, who also noted that he sipped some champagne and a couple glasses of red wine in celebration the night of his triumph. “Golf’s never a game of perfect. You’re always trying to minimize your misses and almost get away with a couple of bad shots here and there, and that was one of the few shots that I’ve ever hit that I could say was 100 percent perfect.”

>Indeed, it was – so much so that the club installed a plaque to commemorate the shot. Fox, a 39-year-old native of New Zealand, returns this week to TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley (North Course) in Caledon, Ontario, for the 115th playing of Canada’s national championship, and had a chance to see the plaque for the first time on Wednesday.

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>“I've never had one of those before, so that was a pretty cool novelty today,” he said during a press conference on the eve of the championship.

>The finishing hole at TPC Toronto, which sits on land that once served as a sand and gravel quarry and features a pond dangerously close to the green, could be the site of another dramatic finish on Sunday.

>“With the pond there, it just seemed to be a good natural end for a risk-reward par 5,” original course architect Doug Carrick, who watched last year’s tournament on TV, told Score Golf. “It’s kind of a double-dogleg where you have to bite off the corners on both shots to get at the green. That was always the intention with that hole.”

>Growing up as the son of Grant Fox, one of the greatest rugby players New Zealand has ever produced, Fox learned an important lesson: hard work beats talent. He switched his focus to golf at age 18 and notched four wins on the DP World Tour, including the BMW PGA Championship, its preeminent title, but he called winning on the PGA Tour, which he had done for the first time in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, just a month before his victory in Canada, “a different beast.”

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>“I kind of always felt like I could compete out here, but it's a bit easier to believe it when you actually do it,” he said. “That five-week period last year was kind of what I had dreamed of since I took up golf full-time. Still crazy to think – I've just looked at a few of the names on the trophy here – that my name is part of that history.”

>The Canadian Open is the fourth oldest tournament, behind the British Open, U.S. Open and BMW Championship, formerly known as the Western Open, begun in 1899, five years before the Canadian Open. This week's field includes 44 players ranked in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking, with 14 of those in the top 50. Four top 10 players headline the field: No. 4 Matt Fitzpatrick, a three-time Tour winner this season; No. 6 Justin Rose, winner of the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this season; No. 7 Tommy Fleetwood, the reigning FedEx Cup champion; and No. 10 Collin Morikawa, winner of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February.

>“It seems like a stronger field than last year,” said Fox. “Coming from Memorial last week and heading into Shinnecock next week (site of the U.S. Open) it's kind of nice to know that there are some birdies out here if you do play well.”

>Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.

>This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ryan Fox returns to defend Canadian Open title