Australian PGA Championship: Ryan Fox, Daniel Hillier, Kazuma Kobori lead charge for first Kiwi winner in 26 years

Thursday, 27 November 2025

Ryan Fox says his game is in good shape heading into the Australian PGA Championship despite eight weeks off.

What: Australian PGA Championship, first round. Where: Royal Queensland Golf Club, Brisbane. When (tee times): Ryan Fox 9.10am (NZT), Kazuma Kobori 9.30am, Daniel Hillier 2pm, live on Sky Sport 2 from 2pm Thursday.

It sounds similar to the Black Caps’ lean test cricket record in Australia - 26 years since a New Zealand golfer won the Australian PGA Championship.

Ryan Fox, who spearheads a high quality Kiwi challenge for Australia’s second-biggest tournament starting on Thursday (a week before the Australian Open), produced a cricketing analogy when asked why it was so difficult for overseas players to challenge the locals.

Since Greg Turner won in 1999 at Melbourne’s Victoria Golf Club, just one offshore raider has hoisted the silverware - American Harold Varner in 2016 - as a who’s who of Australian golf dominated.

“Is it like the Ashes, the Aussies are just good on home soil. Is that a good answer?” Fox said.

Min Woo Lee is rated the favourite to win at Royal Queensland this week.

“I know what it’s like, your home events mean a little bit more, you get up for them a little bit more. It seems like every year two or three of the top Aussie guys get up and play really well at this event and the Aussie Open. They’re hard to beat on home soil.”

World No 46 and 2023 champion Min Woo Lee is the bookies’ favourite in a wide open field at Royal Queensland, also including three-time winner Cam Smith and two-time champion Adam Scott, who joins Fox and defending champ Elvis Smylie in one feature group at 9.10am (NZT).

Fox, the world No 41, arrives off an eight-week break as a two-time PGA Tour winner in 2025 with guaranteed status in the US until the end of 2027, feeling fresh and ready to contend on Sunday afternoon.

Back home he didn’t touch a golf club for three weeks and went fishing near the family’s Bay of Islands holiday home with daughter Isabel who turns five next month. He got back into training with Marcus Wheelhouse, who became his fulltime coach just before his win in the Myrtle Beach Classic, then started to get itchy feet ahead of the first tournament of the DP World Tour season.

“It was a couple of weeks too much. I was watching some events on TV thinking ‘I’d quite like to be playing that one’, when a couple of months earlier I didn’t want to see a golf club.”

He played some rounds with his mates and got back in the groove, with a lack of tournament play the only questionmark this week.

Daniel Hillier finished agonisingly short of a PGA Tour card at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

“I feel like my good golf is good enough to compete with anyone, and that’s the goal the next couple of weeks is to find some good golf and be at the pointy end.

“It’s been a few years since I’ve won an event in Aussie (the World Super 6 in Perth in 2019) so I’d love to get another one under my belt.”

DP World Tour regulars Daniel Hiller (ranked 163rd) and Kazuma Kobori (183rd) are the other Kiwi frontliners with genuine chances. Hillier comes off an 18th placing on the European order of merit, a strong finish to the year but an agonising two spots off gaining dual membership to the PGA Tour.

“It’s been good (catching up) although they don’t like getting out of bed early. We were supposed to play a practice round (on Tuesday) but Dan and Kazuma decided they wanted to sleep in til 9.30 so the old boy was on the golf course at 6.30 instead,” Fox said with laugh.

“Kiwi golf is in a really good place and we’ve got a bunch of guys on various tours around the world… It’s cool to see so many of them here.”

Hillier joins top Australian Cam Davis and Chilean Joaquin Niemann - rated equal favourite with Lee - in another high profile group at 2pm (NZT).

There are 13 New Zealanders teeing it up on Thursday, most of them likely to back up next week when a prized spot at the US Masters is offered to the Australian Open winner.

On his top-50 ranking Fox is guaranteed to play Augusta National in April, while his big goal for 2026 is to make his debut for the International team - captained by Australian Geoff Ogilvy - against the US at the Presidents Cup in September.

“I’d love to build on it. It’s hard to beat a year like I had this year. Other than making the Tour Championship I ticked every box that I wanted to.”

Kiwi golfers playing the Australian PGA Championship

Ryan Fox, Daniel Hillier, Kazuma Kobori, Josh Geary, Nick Voke, Jimmy Zheng, Tyler Wood, Jayden Ford, Mason Lee, Kerry Mountcastle, Tyler Hodge, Denzel Ieremia, Mako Thompson.