Ryan Fox plays fast, but he was slow to bloom as a professional golfer.
The 39-year-old did not win a PGA Tour event until last year. Fox collected wins in far-off places like Fiji and Tahiti, along with France, Northern Ireland and his native New Zealand as he built his career.
Then, on Sunday afternoon at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, everything suddenly came together for him.
Fox emerged from the pack on the back nine and sank an 11 1/2-foot birdie putt at No. 18 to win the 154th Open Championship in Southport, England.
Fox captured his first major title by birdieing four of the final six holes thanks to a series of terrific approach shots and clutch putts. His 2-under-par 68 put him at 10-under 270 for the championship.
“You dream of being a major champion. You want to do it whether you think it’s a reality or not,” Fox said. “I guess I probably didn’t until the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the major championships consistently until the last couple of years.
“Yeah, to be sitting in front of you guys now as the Champion Golfer of the Year is a bit crazy. As I said earlier, it’s surreal. I don’t have the vocabulary to explain it.”
Cameron Young set the clubhouse lead at 9-under 271 with a 64, the low round of the day, and was left to watch the action for the next 2 1/2 hours. The No. 4-ranked player in the world will rue his only bogey of the day at the par-4 18th: Young’s attempt at a second shot out of the sand smashed into the face of the bunker.
He put his third shot into another bunker right of the green, and his attempt to save par from there rolled just over the right edge of the cup.
“It’s just one of those like — one of the times you just wonder what you’ve just done a little bit (differently),” said Young, who played the front nine in 5-under 29.
“But I was trying to hit it on the green, to be honest. I felt like I could. I really felt like 10 had a good chance to win the golf tournament. It was just trying to win the golf tournament. … It just felt worth the risk.”
Sam Burns, the 54-hole leader, recorded three bogeys at Nos. 4-6 and followed that with 12 straight pars as he posted a 2-over 72 to place third at 8 under.
Fox entered the day at 8 under, two off Burns’ lead, and played with him in the final pairing after a remarkable Saturday round of 62. He was 1 over for his round after 12 holes but sank a 12-footer for birdie at No. 13 and tapped in another at the par-4 14th.
He had an unlucky break off the tee at the par-3 15th, a difficult lie in a bunker that forced him to lay up and play for bogey. But he got the stroke right back at No. 16 with a 10-foot birdie roll, bringing him back level with Young before the big finish.
Fox hit a 9-iron into the 18th green and liked what he saw.
“I hit it exactly how I wanted to,” Fox said. “To see it land and get relatively close there was pretty cool. Yeah, that’s one of the shots you dream of hitting, to execute like that under pressure. Yeah, very proud of myself to do that.”
Then came the winning putt. Fox wasted almost no time after Burns had finished up.
“I was always that way as a kid. I see things fast,” he said. “I was the same when I was playing cricket growing up. I played almost every sport growing up, and tennis I wanted to hit the ball hard, and cricket I wanted to hit the ball hard. Everything just happened fast. I was never methodical at anything, to be honest, and it just carried over into golf.”
Fox is the second native of New Zealand to win The Open, following Bob Charles in 1963. He made sure to point out the other names on the short list of Kiwi major champions: Lydia Ko in the women’s game and Michael Campbell at the 2005 U.S. Open.
“So to be able to join them is amazing,” Fox said. “To have my own little piece of history, too, it’s — I don’t know if it’s something I’ve dreamed of. I don’t know if it’s something I ever thought was possible, but we’re here now.”
Fox had never previously finished in the top 10 of a major. He joins an enviable list of Open winners at Royal Birkdale that includes Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Jordan Spieth.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (67) and hometown favorite Tommy Fleetwood (68) tied for fourth at 7 under. Scheffler, who was the defending champion, finished 2026 without a major title.
Fleetwood grew up in Southport, just down the road from Royal Birkdale; he was undone by three straight bogeys at Nos. 9-11, but an improbable 73-foot birdie at the first hole and closing birdies at Nos. 17-18 electrified the pro-Fleetwood crowd.
“This disappointment that I didn’t win today or I couldn’t get it done when I was in a really good position, of course there’s only one person that gets to win it, and like my dream of winning The Open will carry on and I’ll continue to chase it,” Fleetwood explained.
“But stuff like that, walking down 18 and the atmosphere out there, that was beyond stuff that I’ve dreamt of. That was just stuff that I never imagined. The crowds were amazing, and they made it the most special week ever for me, and I can’t thank them enough.”
South Korea’s Si Woo Kim briefly held the solo lead at 10 under halfway through his round, after Young had signed his scorecard. But he came apart with bogeys at Nos. 11, 12, 16 and 18 to post a 72 and fall back to 6 under, where he tied Australian Lucas Herbert (71) and South African Casey Jarvis (66) for sixth place.
Bryson DeChambeau opened with eight straight pars before bogeying No. 9, losing a ball at No. 11 and making a triple bogey there en route to a 72. He was part of a tie for 14th at 4 under — two days after he received a two-stroke penalty for improving the path of his swing and, as confirmed by his agent, threatened not to play the weekend.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy (71) tied for 40th at 1 under.
–Field Level Media
