Kiwi Ryan Fox is at it again as a third-round 66 rocketed him up the Hero Dubai Desert Classic leaderboard.

The New Zealander had the season of his life in 2022 and the 36-year-old is not letting up as he looks to emulate a breakthrough campaign where he finished runner-up to Rory McIlroy in the DP World Tour season-long Rankings race.

Fox sits two behind the leaders as it stands, and is in a pretty good place, given he won in the UAE at Ras Al Khaimah last season.

“I’ve been fighting it a little bit the last week or so. There were some positive signs this week, but I fought it a lot yesterday,” he said. “I will say that it felt great early on today, I had a couple of good shots and got away with a couple of things. I made an interesting par on hole 4, almost hitting it into the hazard, so I sort of got away with a few bad shots.

“Then I caught fire a little bit on the back nine. I hit some better shots. Got a little lucky a couple times on 13 and 14 and took advantage and probably left a couple out there the last two holes. You feel like you should birdie one of those, 17 or 18. But it’s nice to be back in the mix at least.”

Fox is ready to raise his game again after a stellar 2022, winning the DP WOrld Tour Seve Players’ Players of the Year award for his work.

“To get the Seve award earlier in the week, I would like to say a dream come true but I probably didn’t even think it was that to be honest,” he said. “To join those names on that trophy was amazing and yeah, I’ll certainly be giving it a good crack tomorrow to see if I can get two.”