Ryan Fox finishes runner-up in Belgium

Ryan Fox – file photo Getty Images – his good season continues

New Zealand’s Ryan Fox has finished in a share of the runner-up position at the Soudal Open in Antwerp in Belgium.

Fox, who led into the final round, and his joint runner-up finisher, Paul Yannick of Germany, finished two behind the winner, England’s Sam Horsfield, Fox’s closing nine of 2 over par 37 costing him the chance of a second win in 2022.

The runner-up pair earned €166,000 each.

Fox will improve to the mid 80’s in the world ranking from just outside the top 100 and now heads to Tulsa in the US for this week’s PGA Championship in which he gained a start a week ago.

Josh Geary was the only other Australasian to make the weekend and finished 58^th.

The winner Horsfield is a rising star of the European Tour and won his third event and his first since August of 2020 when he won twice. His regular caddie was unavailable this week and his girlfriend Issabella Byron stood in.

“I was trying not to cry while I was over that little tap-in (at the 18th),” said the winner. “Having Issi (Isabella Byron) on the bag, it’s been an amazing week. Mick (Seaborn, his regular caddie) is not here but I wish he was. I said yesterday I wanted to do it for him, and I was able to do it for him. I’m just so, so happy.

“I definitely thought about Mick quite a lot. Especially on the back nine, I pulled a few clubs that he definitely would have wanted me to hit.

“Issi has been amazing. I’ve been so happy on the golf course. It’s just like golf’s sort of got in the way this week, until a little bit there on the back nine. I asked her coming down 18 ‘are you nervous’ and she said yeah. But we’ve had an amazing week and I’m just so happy that she was here to enjoy this.

“This was a really special week for me, you know Issi my girlfriend was caddying for me, so it was a little different out there and we had a hell of a lot of fun. Unfortunately Mick my caddie couldn’t be here, you know I wish he was, and I was definitely thinking about him today. And this was for him.