Masters debutant details time 'chuffed' Shane Warne told him about Augusta ace

06 April 2023 , 09:13

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Ryan Fox has paid tribute to close friend Shane Warne ahead of his Masters debut (Image: Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

Ryan Fox is set to make his debut at the Masters this year and will be hoping to replicate the success his late friend and cricket legend Shane Warne had on the Augusta course.

New Zealand golfer Fox was close friends with Warne, with the pair regularly playing together at the DP World Tour's Alfred Dunhill Links Championship Pro-Am event. The pair finished runner-up in 2021 and Fox went on to win the championship last year, paying tribute to Warne months after his tragic death at the age of just 52.

Fox's victory at St Andrews was his second DP World Tour win last year and helped earn him an invitation to the Masters. And speaking ahead of his debut, the 36-year-old recalled the time Warne hit a hole in one on the course.

"That is true," Fox told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I texted him and he was absolutely chuffed. I've heard the story more than once, but it's not a bad story to hear. It's just like Warnie for that to happen.

"To be able to call him a mate and for him to text saying, 'Foxy, do you want to play golf?' ... it almost doesn't feel real he's gone. You kind of expect him to say April Fools. I just wish that was the case."

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Warne hit the hole in one at Augusta's fabled 16th hole during a trip to the course in 2008, with the leg-spinner claiming he was "the only person to do it" to a back-right pin on that particular hole.

"I played the 16th two other times; one I made a birdie to a front pin - a lot of pros make birdies there - and the second time I played 16th I pulled it into the water, no good," he recalled in an interview with Sporting News Australia. "The third time we played was the one.

"I think it was 159 yards up into the breeze... and I hit (my shots) quite high so I was worried if I hit a 7 iron it wouldn't be enough. The pin is the Friday pin, which is the back right pin, which has never ever had a hole-in-one... no one has ever had a hole-in-one there in the history of the club.

"I hit a 6 iron, and as you hit you sort of say 'oh I've hit that well'... suddenly, one bounce, boom, straight in! I've never ever had a hole-in-one, never gone close, so it was my first hole-in-one and I love my golf, so to have a hole-in-one at Augusta at one of the most iconic holes on the planet, to a back right pin that no one has ever done, to be the only person to do it, I'll take that."

Matthew Cooper