US Open golf: Ryan Fox on how hip injury influenced lifestyle changes during PGA Tour season
The threat of surgery triggered a change in Ryan Fox.
Toward the back end of his 2024 season, the Kiwi golfer was dealing with a hip injury. It wasn't so much an issue of pain, but it was impacting his movement.
Initially trying to play through and address it with
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NZ Herald
5 hours ago
- NZ Herald
US Open golf: Ryan Fox finishes two-over in first round at Oakmont Country Club
Ahead of the US Open, Ryan Fox predicted Oakmont Country Club might 'probably put me back in my place pretty quickly.' But in an opening round full of carnage on the scorecards, Fox navigated away from most of it to finish his opening round with a two-over-par 72 in
RNZ News
6 hours ago
- RNZ News
Solid enough: Ryan Fox has mixed opening round at US Open
Ryan Fox plays a shot from the bunker on the third hole during the first round of the US Open at Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pennsylvania, on June 12, 2025. Photo: AFP New Zealand golfer Ryan Fox has had a mixed opening round at the US Open in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, sitting six strokes off the clubhouse lead. Fox, who won his way into a place in the field with his heart-stopping Canadian Open play-off victory on Monday , played a mostly steady round to finish 2-over par, with one major hiccup, a double bogey on the 14th hole. He started well with a birdie on the par-4 second hole, but immediately negated that with a bogey on the third. He nailed a long putt to birdie the par-3 sixth and then had a run of four pars before striking trouble with a bogey on the 11th. Worse was to come with the double bogey on the par-4 14th, which dropped him back to 2-over. He recovered to par the final four places on the challenging Oakmont Country Club course that caused problems for most players, including Masters champion Rory McIlroy and tournament favourite Scottie Scheffler. With plenty of players still to finish their round, Fox was tied for 38th, six strokes behind JJ Spaun, who was the early clubhouse leader and hadn't been overtaken by the time Fox finished. McIlroy was eight shots back after a challenging 4-over round, while Scheffler finished 3-over. Fox had predicted before the tournament it would be tough going on the fickle course. "I've seen enough stuff on social media and talked to a couple of guys that went early this week and it sounds like it's going to be a beat-up, which will be fun,'' he said. "It's going to be a little different from [the Canadian Open]. I don't think 18-under is going to be needed. I like that style of golf, maybe not every week, but it is fun to play every now and again and you know that par is a good score." Spaun, who lost to McIlroy in a playoff at The Players Championship in March, fired a 4-under-par 66 in stifling conditions that marked his lowest round in a major, Reuters reported. "I hit a lot of good shots and tried to capitalise on any birdie opportunities, which aren't very many out here," said Spaun. "But I scrambled really well, too, which is a huge component to playing well at a US Open, let alone shoot a bogey-free round. "I'm just overly pleased with how I started the tournament." South African Thriston Lawrence birdied the penultimate hole and got to the clubhouse one shot back of Spaun. Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, one of 14 LIV Golf players in the field this week and looking to become the first repeat US Open winner since Brooks Koepka in 2018, spent too much time in Oakmont's penal rough and opened with a 73. "It was a brutal test of golf. But one that I'm excited for tomorrow," said DeChambeau. "If I just tidy up a couple of things and get some momentum going my way, we'll see where it goes." McIlroy, still looking to regain the form that helped him complete the career Grand Slam in April, started from the 10th hole and made two early birdies and reached the turn two shots back of Spaun before a wayward second nine. World No.2 Mcllroy made four bogeys over a seven-hole stretch out of the turn followed by a double-bogey at the par-3 eighth where he left his tee shot in the thick rough and failed to get out on his first attempt. He signed for a 74. Red-hot world No.1 Scheffler, who counts the PGA Championship among his three wins in his last four starts, went out with the late starters and reached the turn at two over after mixing four bogeys with two birdies. He had one birdie and two bogeys on his closing nine to finish 3-over. Former Masters champion Patrick Reed, who also went out late, made the fourth albatross in recorded US Open history when his second shot at the 621-yard par-five fourth landed on the green and trickled in to move into the mix. - RNZ Sport/Reuters
Newsroom
12 hours ago
- Newsroom
More than a medal: Māia's comeback a victory over hurt
Returning to the international climbing stage after a year of physical and mental anguish, Rachel Māia experienced emotional whiplash. First came the crushing low of one wrong move on the wall – feeling defeated, doubting her strength, questioning if she was even ready to face the heights of international competition so soon after surgery. Then came the soaring high of getting her head back in the game – with the help of a roped-in cheer squad – attacking the wall with renewed determination, and snatching a bronze medal at the Para Climbing World Cup in Salt Lake City. Back at home in Whanganui, her celebrations tempered by a bout of Covid, Māia admits the medal is less about the bling, and more about the battle of the past year. 'It means the world to me, because at points it felt like I was fighting for my life last year,' the 42-year-old single mum of three says. 'I was just barely existing; I was really fighting through it. 'To come back and know I can hold my own and keep up just proves that you can put your health and your wellbeing first. It's not worth burning out for something shiny. 'If you look after yourself, do the mahi and build your community and your support, your goals can still exist, and you can still be a high achiever in amongst the dysfunction, the disability and the pain. That's incredible.' Rachel Māia proudly displays her World Cup bronze medal. Photo: Santi Vega Castro Māia, a below-the-knee amputee, was the first Kiwi climber – able-bodied or disabled – to win a World Cup medal, a silver in 2022. She backed it up with a bronze at the world championships the following year. But in 2024, she chose to take a year away from her sport – for surgery on her 'good' leg, and to focus on her mental health. Her long-term goal is to compete at the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, where Para climbing will make its debut. Last week she learned her AL2 classification – climbers with at least one leg amputation or limb deficiency – will be among the eight medal events in LA. Naturally, she's over the moon. But LA is still three years away, and Māia knows she needs to find her own funding to get to key events like the world championships in South Korea in September, if she's to qualify. And right now, Māia is still living in a world of pain. It's been 25 years since the accident that shattered Māia's life. At a school climbing competition, the teenager fell while bouldering and landed awkwardly – severely damaging her left ankle and breaking her right. Eighteen years passed before she returned to climbing to 'claim some life back'; she finished fourth at the 2018 Para climbing world championships, becoming New Zealand's first international Para climber. The following year, after enduring nine operations, Māia made the life-changing decision to have her left leg amputated below the knee. She realised a prosthetic would give her greater mobility to do more with her kids. Māia has had more operations since – the latest on her right ankle last year. She broke the joint again late in 2023, in a 'small tumble' while bouldering in Switzerland's Magic Wood. 'This ankle now has the same condition that my left one had before it was amputated – caused by underlying hypermobility, a previous trauma from my original accident, and two decades of compensating for my left leg,' Māia says. 'The degenerative condition in my joint from the accident when I was 16 was catching up to me.' Māia's orthopaedic surgeon found a lot of wear and tear to the ankle that required surgery. Rachel Māia prepares to climb. Photo: Slobodan Miskovic @xsloba/IFSC. Afterwards, Māia decided to take a longer route back to recovery and a return to climbing. 'I felt I just needed to slow down,' she says. 'As women, or mothers, we have a tendency to not step back and take a rest until we crack before we hit burnout. We feel we need a medical reason to rest. 'I wanted to learn from past mistakes and give myself permission to rest without burnout, without breaking. But that being said it was still one of the hardest mental health years of my life.' Māia stepped away from competition to focus on her family and her home – which had been demolished internally to make it wheelchair friendly. 'There was a point where I was coming home and crawling around on cold concrete, and there were tools and building stuff everywhere, my wheelchair wouldn't fit through the doorways and there was no heating. I ended up living in a hotel with my son for a couple of weeks,' she says. The renovations are now finished and are 'life altering,' she says. 'I didn't realise how low my living standards were and how much energy was going into providing for a family. I was falling into the oven, tripping over my crutches trying to put food in and burning my arms. There was a lot of crying on the bathroom floor,' she says. 'Now I can cook and do the dishes in my wheelchair.' Some major challenges remain for Māia. She doesn't have a climbing wall to train on in Whanganui, so it's a four-hour round trip driving to either Wellington or Turangi – an excursion she has to fit in during school hours. 'There's a very delicate balance trying to get some time on the wall and to stay healthy when you're coping with no sleep, mental health, pain and basic existence some days,' she says. After a disappointing first climb, Rachel Māia is thrilled to make it to the AL2 women's final. Photo: Slobodan Miskovic @xsloba/IFSC Māia lives with chronic nerve pain in her residual left limb. 'After two amputation surgeries and multiple procedures trying to alleviate it, the pain is just raging,' she says. 'Some days I have 10 out of 10 pains for two or three days straight. 'Once you lie down at night and there's nothing to entertain your thoughts, all there is is screaming pain. So I don't get a fully restful sleep, it's medicated, and that's not great for recovery. But I find going to the gym helps me get out of the pain cave.' Māia was a New Zealand team of one at last month's World Cup in Salt Lake City – her comeback to the international stage. That's not unusual for her to travel without a coach, manager or physiotherapist, and paying her own way there. Initially, she wasn't going to compete at the World Cup, because she only returned to training 'full throttle' at the start of this year. But she needed an event to get her competition ready before the world championships – and she didn't want to 'waste the kindness and generosity' of family and friends who'd fundraised for her to get there. But when she did her first qualifier climb in the competition in Salt Lake City, she seriously wondered if it was too soon. The night before, she had watched a video of a forerunner climbing the route she'd face in competition. 'I got very obsessed that I had to do this one move a particular way, and I had to do it fast. And I was wrong,' says Māia, who found herself in seventh place, doubting she could come back from that error of judgment. 'Then some friends gave me a pep talk. I could sit in the narrative that I don't have the resources, so I can't keep up with these women who train on world class facilities. Or I could sit in the narrative, 'Why not me, and why not today?' So I went out there with that fight.' Without any team-mates, Māia recruited a cheer squad of her own. She gave her spare New Zealand uniform to her friend, Chilean Paralympic skier Santi Vega Castro. 'He helped me work through my decision to amputate my leg five years ago, so it was really meaningful to see him at the bottom of the wall, in a Kiwi uniform,' Māia says. She also approached a row of medics stationed beneath the climb and asked them to bring some noise for her final qualifier. 'These wāhine, all complete strangers, were fully invested in my climb. I had so much fun on that route – I felt so powerful, strong and ready,' Māia says. It elevated her to second place and into the final, where she won bronze on a countback. Rachel Māia celebrates with friend and fellow amputee Santi Vega Castro. Photo: Slobodan Miskovic @xsloba/IFSC 'You can get hung up on, 'There's a lot going against me; I don't have a climbing wall in the same city',' Māia says. 'But on the flip side, it's very motivating to feel you're coming from a situation that's not well resourced, so when you accomplish something like this, the highs are so much higher. You're like, 'Holy heck, I did this thing and yeah, I had to fight for it'.' Māia is back training on the small 'spray wall' – a board packed with climbing holds in her home shed, which helps build her strength. She's not worried about suffering further damage to her legs through climbing. 'It's low impact, and I'm relying on my upper body strength and moving fluidly through problems, so I'm very safe. I don't take big whips [falls] anymore,' she says. 'My sport creates a lot of functional strength, which should prevent more damage over time – because your muscles and ligaments are stronger, it stops the joint from collapsing in on itself and provides stability. 'The thing I'm most worried about right now is, 'How do I fund this?' It's terrifying – on top of living with chronic pain and disability it's just another anxiety that prevents you from coming out at your best.' Māia has consistently finished in the top four at major competitions over the past three years, and she won bronze at the last world championships in Bern in 2023. But she knows that it's not unusual for athletes from minority sports to be self-funded. Her dream lies ahead in Los Angeles. 'When you look at climbing, it's so athletic, so powerful, that it belongs in the Olympics and the Paralympics,' Māia says. 'It will be an incredible opportunity for people to see that it's possible to go down to their local gym and say, 'Hey, I need some people in my life. I need some community. I need something to get up for each day. Can you help me on a wall?' 'That's how it was for me – living in chronic pain, lying on the lounge floor in front of the fire while my kids went to school, unable to exist outside of pain. Then I went to a climbing gym and said, 'I need some help'. And here I am, sitting here with a bronze medal around my neck, with the knowledge I can do it and there could be a gold out there for me. 'I don't want to just exist. I want to live a life that has impact. I hope when other mothers look at me, they believe they can create the life they deserve, whatever their dream is.'
