Ryan Fox’s fast pace was amazing. Should most golfers step on the gas?

If you didn’t see Ryan Fox coming, that might be because he’s related to many of his grinding, mud-sticking peers, Fox blazing through the course like a gray wolf chasing a rabbit. Ask Scottie Scheffler, who played alongside Fox and Zecheng Dou in the third round of the Phoenix Open earlier this year – or at least Scheffler. he thinks played with Fox. “We’re off the 9th tee, and he says, ‘Foxy, it doesn’t sound like you’re on the team,'” the newly named Champion Golfer of the Year said Sunday evening at Birkdale. “It just feels like we’re playing two balls, you hit it quickly. It’s just in the air.”

Fox has always played on the spur of the moment, dating back to his teenage days in Auckland, New Zealand, when he joined his father, Grant, a New Zealand rugby player, in business golf matches and deliberately spent little time making sure he didn’t catch his teammates. That Fox quickly processed things – not just on the golf course but on the cricket field and tennis courts – didn’t hurt either. See the ball, hit the ball.

“I need to make sure this comes together well,” he said in Birkdale. “It’s not that hard to pick a shot and pick a club. It’s always going to be within one or two clubs of the green, and I just see the shot quickly, take the shot quickly, and if I have a little time to think about it, little bad things can get in there.”

In an era when many of the world’s best golfers need a Pentagon briefing before taking a shot at a 112-yard wedge, and fans have turned lazy golfers into a blood sport, watching Fox’s drive to the Claret Jug didn’t just give you a kiss – it made you wonder if more golfers wouldn’t get into gear.

Among the open spectators enjoying Fox’s speed was GOLF Top 100 instructor Christopher Smith, who watched the final round from eight-time spots, at home in Eugene, Ore. When it comes to playing fast golf, Smith can be a tough guy to impress. That’s because, when he was growing up, he played golf at a speed that would put Usain Bolt to shame.

Take the 18-hole round Smith played at Jackson Park Golf Course in Chicago in October 2005; With just six clubs in his bag, Smith shot a 65 – in 44 minutes, or the time it takes to bake a loaf of banana bread. Smith’s feat, which he won at the Chicago Speedgolf Classic, put him in the “Guinness Book of World Records.,” where you will still find his name even today.

Smith, now 63, has slowed down a bit but remains in tune with the benefits of keeping things on the course — and preaching those benefits to his students at Eugene Country Club and Puerto Los Cabos Golf Club in Mexico. “One of the ways that I – and people – can test themselves – is when they talk to the ball,” Smith said. “If you put the club down behind the ball, if you move it up, whatever you do before impact, how many seconds does it take? And what produces the best impact? Where do you hit the best shots? Foxy looks like she’s 8 years old.”

The PGA Tour earlier this week shared clips of Fox over the ball at various tournaments, and that video backs up Smith’s rating. “He does everything very quickly,” Smith said of Fox in a telephone interview Tuesday. “He walks fast, as soon as he hit it, he took the putter out of his bag, ready to go.”

Smith continued: “I think it really helped him when he was very nervous – which he was, he admitted, especially last time – to know that your normal routine and normal time when you play football is not very long. Probably the worst thing he could have done was to start thinking about it and take more time.

Here what happened to Greg Norman when he lost his lead to Nick Faldo in the 1996 Masters. “At the end of the front 9 and the back 9, a lot of the time he takes the ball, it’s longer and longer,” Smith said. “And he got worse and worse.”

None of this is to say that the Fox does not struggle with mental demons like the rest of us. You do it. He even has a sports psychologist, Karl Morris, with whom Fox strategizes in preparation for the Open. Fox, they agreed, relied heavily on his South African coach, Dean Smith, in choosing clubs – and when that choice went wrong, Fox found himself resenting Smith. To break the pattern, Fox, at Birkdale, received yardage, wind and other intel lessons from Smith but did all the work — club selection, shot formation, etc. – himself. “I’m better when I create an image,” Fox said Sunday.

At Birkdale, Fox was also serious about his breathing, especially on the greens. He said he used to be fast in tight spots. “I just take a long second, especially on the putt, just prepare myself, relax,” he said Sunday. “I’ve done that many a time.”

It was hard to say. On the 72nd hole, Fox hit his tee shot before the front group had completely cleared the green. Then followed his 12-foot putt for the win. From the time Fox’s playing partner, Sam Burns, stepped outside to set the course for Fox, to the time Fox swung his putter and sent his ball toward immortality, 22.23 seconds elapsed.

“We’ve always said this in the Speedgolf world: he sees it and hits it,” Smith said.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the considered golf style, Smith said. There is some science at work here, related to eye and hand control. People who are weak, meaning the left eye again on the right, or vice versa, Smith says, is more likely to be “spontaneous and effective.”

“If you’re the same person — let’s say you’re strong and you’re on the right side — you’re going to have the ability to see it, plan it and think about it a little bit and then do it,” Smith said.

As much as fans would like to see more Tour pros use Fox’s pep, his Claret Jug tenure is unlikely to spawn an army of copycats and solve golf’s underplaying epidemic. For some players, 8 or 9 seconds may be too much time to relax at address; for others, they may need 14 or 15 seconds. The key, says Smith, is to know your sweet spot. “I always tell people, look at the results,” Smith said. “Football tells you a story. Is it better or worse, or is it the same?”

As for Fox, don’t expect him to let off the accelerator anytime soon.

“If you’re trying to slow me down and make me slow everything down,” he said Sunday evening, “I don’t think I’m going to help anything.”