When you drain a putt of over 50 feet, most would say it’s a lucky putt.
But what about when you consistently make long putts? When does it move from the luck category to the skill column?
In the first round of the Mexico Open, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox hit the green on the par three fifth hole and was about as far away as you can be and still be on the green, 91 feet 7 inches.
The 38-year-old took a bit of a turn, sending the white sphere on a ride left to right the entire way, and as it slowed, breaking even hard from to the right before catching the left part of the hole and then circling the hole once before dropping in for a birdie.
“Honestly, I had a good two-putt on the last hole as well from like 60 feet on 4. I had the speed of the greens pretty good today,” Fox said after a 3-under 68. “I'm not going to say I had a good line on that, I just kind of, you know, picked it out. It was breaking a whole chunk left to right and just tried to get the speed right and got lucky in the end.”
Fox’s putt is the longest made in 2025, eclipsing the 71’ 2” putt made by Cameron Young in the second round of the WM Phoenix Open earlier this year.
Oddly, Fox seems to have a knack for making long putts, making the longest putt on the PGA Tour in 2024 with an 88” 10” in the first round at Phoenix.
“I look at it from behind the hole, behind the ball and kind of the low side,” Fox said of his process to putting. “Like I did get up behind it and saw it was breaking a decent amount, like had a pretty good idea of how much it was going to move and then you're just trying to get the speed right.”
Since 2003, when ShotLink came into play, the longest putt ever made on the PGA Tour was by Craig Barlow at the Buick Open in 2008 from 111” 5” on the first hole of the final round.
That putt, which is in the Guiness World Records, was made using a Lob Wedge and not a putter, but since it was on the green, it counted as a putt.
For Fox, it was putter all the way.
“I don't practice on too many putting greens that have 90 feet to practice on,” Fox joked. “For me golf's all feel based anyway, I get up and feel it. It's kind of the same thing, hit a couple of practice putts kind of feeling what the speed's going to be, and hope you kind of get it right, to be honest. Definitely practice like the 40-plus-footers, 40-, 50-footers, but nothing that long. You don't get too many of those in a round of golf, and you just hope you can kind of trust your feel on it, and thankfully, I could there.”
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