Golf: Ryan Fox hits out at the 'absurdity' of Government Covid response following NZ Open cancellation

New Zealand golfer Ryan Fox during the 101st New Zealand Golf Open, at the Hills in 2020. Photosport

Golfer Ryan Fox has expressed his exasperation after hearing the New Zealand Open has been cancelled for a second straight year due to continued border restrictions.

Organisers made the decision to cancel the 2022 New Zealand Open planned for Millbrook (March 31-April 3) citing the continued border restrictions for international players, coupled with the prohibitive restrictions operating under the current red light traffic system.

Fox who is in Ras al Khaimah in the UAE for his third of four DP World Tour events in the Middle East this week was gutted to hear the New Zealand Open is off.

"I woke up to that news this morning, a text from Michael Glading (Tournament Director) and a couple other people as well. I'm very disappointed. Obviously, I know how hard both John Hart and Michael Glading work to get the event off the ground," Fox told the Herald.

This year's tournament was going to offer for the first time, three qualifying spots for the British Open with the 150th edition being staged at St Andrew's in July.

Fox is staggered that two years into the pandemic New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world that has moved to a phase of 'living with the virus'.

"It's absurd that Covid positive people (who catch the virus in New Zealand) are able to isolate at home but everyone travelling gets treated like they have it or worse," Fox said.

"We have had a couple of patches, where we've been able to have crowds and everything's felt a bit normal. But, any planning at this point just seems impossible. There's too much uncertainty around it. People might not like this, but a lot of decision making from the Government tends to change week to week and if you are trying to run a big event, you can't go week to week, you need months in advance.

"That's why we've lost so many events. It's got to be frustrating for Kiwi sports fans, especially anyone watching sport around the rest of the world at the moment. The NFL playoffs are on with full crowds, the English Premier League's on with full crowds. Last week in Dubai, we didn't test at all for the event, and we had full crowds, and it felt like it was completely normal again. But two years on we're still dealing with all that in New Zealand," Fox said.

The 102nd New Zealand Open will now be played March 2-5, 2023 at Millbrook but Fox is gutted he won't get a chance to compete for the Brodie Breeze Trophy at the end of March before he heads off to re-join the DP World Tour.

"I feel like we were in a pretty good place a year ago. We had stopped the first wave of it and limited the deaths compared to the rest of the world. But unfortunately, we have stuck with the same mindset we had when it first came along and decided not to learn to live with it.

"And after traveling a lot the last year and a bit. you can see the rest of the world was forced into learning how to live with it, and especially now with the new Omicron variant, my caddie had it two weeks ago. He said he was not feeling very well for about six hours. And he had to stand down for 10 days but he was absolutely fine.

Fox said people he knew in England had moved on from Covid.

"Basically, everyone in Europe that I knew who hadn't had Covid already caught Omicron over Christmas at some point and said they felt bad for a couple of days. I talked to Adam Scott last week he caught COVID twice and said the second time with Omicron wasn't too bad. I know that even last year in the UK it wasn't front and centre like it is in New Zealand. You know, everyone was more worried about who was winning the Premier League, basically than what the Covid case numbers were doing. Unfortunately, we've been stuck in that same cycle in New Zealand for the last two years. While we were in a good place a year ago, it feels like we haven't moved forward," Fox lamented.

Fox has plenty of sympathy for the many thousands of New Zealanders stuck overseas who have been unable to secure MIQ spots in the lottery.

"There's a lot of people worse off than me. Thousands of Kiwis stuck overseas who have not been able to see dying relatives, not been able to go to funerals and catch up with family for more than two years. I guess I've been lucky, I have managed to get spots in the lottery a couple of times. There's plenty of Kiwis who haven't. Obviously, the Charlotte Bellis case is bringing the issue front and centre and I am happy that the plight of Kiwis stuck is worldwide news and shows how absurd our system is.

"Literally every single person playing these events can go home without any form of quarantine. I think the Chinese guys are the only guys that have quarantine when they go home. But they can still get into their home country, no questions asked. So, it's a little bit frustrating two years on that we're still dealing with this. Personally, I think I would feel a lot safer and a lot less risk to the community, going home and isolating for 10 days at home rather than being stuck in a hotel, being shipped on a bus for four hours to wherever and end up going into MIQ," Fox said.

The cancellation of the New Zealand Open won't affect his schedule too much as he will only be missing a couple of events in South Africa in April.

"To be honest, I've always struggled with the altitude in South Africa. So, I will be quite happy missing those events.