Ryan Fox Wins The Open — Birdie at 18 Stuns Royal Birkdale
- Jul 20
- 4 min read
Ryan Fox is a major champion. The 39-year-old New Zealander rolled in a birdie putt on the 72nd hole at Royal Birkdale on Sunday to win the 154th Open Championship, finishing at 10 under par and edging Cameron Young by a single stroke. It was the kind of finish links golf lives for — one putt, one roar, and one man lifting the Claret Jug for the first time in his career.
The final margin does not begin to describe the road Fox traveled to get there. He began the weekend well off the lead before detonating the tournament with a Saturday 62, one of the lowest rounds in Open history at Birkdale, and then closed with a steady 68 on a nervy final afternoon. That 62-68 weekend was the engine of what the PGA Tour called an epic rally, carrying Fox past a leaderboard stacked with the biggest names in the sport.
Sam Burns carried the 54-hole lead into Sunday, with Tommy Fleetwood, Bryson DeChambeau and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler all lurking within range. One by one, the challengers stalled on a course that gave nothing away down the stretch. It was Young, the 2026 Players champion still chasing his own first major, who proved the most stubborn, posting 9 under and forcing Fox to earn it on the last green.
Fox answered. Standing on the 18th needing birdie to avoid a playoff with Young, he hit the fairway, found the green, and buried the putt that changed his life. There was no playoff, no extra holes, no asterisk — just a clean, clutch birdie on one of the most famous finishing holes in championship golf.
For Fox, the win is the crowning moment of a career that has been building toward this for years. The son of All Blacks rugby legend Grant Fox, he grew up in Auckland around elite sport and chose golf over the family game. He grinded through the Australasian and European circuits, won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in 2023, and broke through in America with multiple PGA Tour victories, but a major had always been the missing line on the resume.
He becomes the first New Zealander to win The Open since Bob Charles at Royal Lytham in 1963, ending a 63-year wait for a golf-mad country that has produced world-class players — Michael Campbell won the 2005 U.S. Open — but never another Champion Golfer of the Year. In New Zealand, where the final round finished in the early hours of Monday morning local time, the celebration started immediately.
For Young, the runner-up finish is another agonizing near-miss in a career full of them at the game’s biggest events. He has now stacked multiple top finishes in majors, including a runner-up at the 2022 Open at St Andrews, and once again left a Sunday with everything but the trophy. At 29, his time still looks like it is coming, but Birkdale will sting.
Royal Birkdale itself played the role it always plays: ruthless and fair. The Southport links, hosting its 11th Open, offered scoring chances when the wind laid down on Saturday — Fox took full advantage — and then tightened its grip on Sunday, when nobody in the final groups could run away from the field. The champion’s 10-under total was hard-earned on a course that has now crowned winners from Arnold Palmer to Jordan Spieth, and now Fox.
The win carries enormous practical consequences for Fox as well. The Champion Golfer of the Year title comes with the Claret Jug, a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour, invitations to all four majors for years to come, and a spot in The Open field until age 60. For a player who spent a decade scrapping for status across three continents, that security is almost as valuable as the trophy.
It also reshapes the golf calendar’s biggest storylines heading into the fall. Scheffler’s bid to add another major to his collection came up short again this week, DeChambeau’s links puzzle remains unsolved, and the Ryder Cup picture on both sides of the Atlantic now has to account for a red-hot Fox and a wounded but dangerous Young.
The 154th Open will be remembered for one putt, but it was won over 72 holes by the most complete golf of Ryan Fox’s life. The full final-round highlights from Royal Birkdale, including the winning birdie at the last, are in the video below.
The numbers behind the rally tell the story. Fox played the weekend in 14 under par across 36 holes, the best closing stretch of anyone in the field by a wide margin, and he did it while the leaders around him were treading water. By the time the final group reached the back nine on Sunday, the chasing Kiwi had turned a longshot bid into the tournament’s central drama, and the pressure of his posted number did the rest.
Fox’s celebration was pure him: a fist pump, a long hug for his caddie, and a grin that never left his face through the trophy ceremony. Known as one of the most popular players in any locker room he has passed through, the big-hitting New Zealander has always carried his father’s competitive edge with an easygoing exterior, and the warm reception from fellow pros around the 18th green said as much about the man as the golf.
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