In the course of the first spherical of final yr’s WM Phoenix Open, Ryan Fox confronted an 88-footer for an eagle on the par-5 thirteenth gap. He hoped he might get down in two and stroll away with a birdie 4, however as a substitute of lagging it near the outlet, Fox drained it, giving himself the unlikeliest of threes. This putt additionally held up because the longest-holed putt on the PGA Tour for the 2024 season.
Quick ahead to this week’s Mexico Open at VidantaWorld, and Fox confronted one other extremely lengthy putt once more. He had 91 ft and 6 inches between his ball and the flagstick on the par-3 fifth gap, which performed 192 yards on Thursday. Like final yr at TPC Scottsdale, Fox poured it in for birdie, as his ball even did some extracurriculars — it spun across the brim of the cup earlier than dropping to the underside.
“I had the pace of the greens fairly good at present. I’m not going to say I had a very good line on that, I simply type of picked it out,” Fox mentioned of his long-range bomb.
“It was breaking a complete chunk left to proper, and I simply tried to get the pace proper and obtained fortunate in the long run. I didn’t notice how a lot of a loop across the gap it did, I used to be clearly fairly far-off, so seeing it up shut on digital camera’s fairly candy.”
Proper now, Fox’s birdie on the fifth gap is the longest putt of the 2025 season by 20 ft. Cameron Younger made a 71-foot birdie attempt on the fifth gap through the second spherical of the WM Phoenix Open.
On condition that Fox’s 88-footer held up for your entire yr final season, his 91-footer on Thursday has a very good probability of being the longest putt of 2025 — a outstanding but almost inconceivable accomplishment.
The New Zealander went on to shoot a 3-under 68 on Thursday and sits 4 again of leaders Harry Corridor of England and Jeremy Paul of Germany. A late double-bogey on the eighth gap — his seventeenth of the day — stymied Fox’s spherical on the finish, however at the least he can grasp his hat on one other lengthy make.
Jack Milko is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By. Comply with him on X @jack_milko.
