Ryan Fox stood over an eleven-foot putt on the 72nd hole at Royal Birkdale knowing that making it won the Open Championship outright and missing it left the door open for a play-off. He rolled it in, dropped to a crouch, and became, at 39, the first-time major champion nobody outside New Zealand had quite allowed themselves to expect. It was his third PGA Tour title and his 94th start in a major, a career built patiently enough that Sunday’s finish felt less like a breakthrough than a very long-delayed arrival.
A lead that changed hands twice
Sam Burns had carried the outright 54-hole lead into Sunday, two clear of Fox after his own record-tying 62 on Saturday. For much of the front nine that lead held, but the pressure of protecting a major advantage told on Burns in a way it so often does at Open venues, and a bogey-laced back nine turned his round into a two-over 72 that cost him the tournament by mid-afternoon. “He is a well-earned champion and hats off to him,” Burns said afterwards, gracious in a way that comes easier once the ache of a Sunday collapse has had a few hours to settle.
Cameron Young was the man who made it a contest. Back-to-back birdies at the 13th and 14th pulled him level with Fox at the top of the leaderboard, and for a stretch of the afternoon it looked as likely to be his major as anyone’s. Fox answered with a ten-foot birdie at the 16th, then survived a scare of his own at the 15th, escaping a fairway bunker backwards and getting up and down for a bogey that could easily have been worse. That left the 18th to settle it. Young, playing behind, had already given a shot back at the last by the time Fox’s putt fell. “I felt like there was always a chance,” Young said. “I have no idea how it will stand. I could win, or I could end up losing by four. I am disappointed by the one I gave back on 18, but I’m happy with how I played.”
Ryan Fox. Nerves of steel.
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 19, 2026
That is how you win The 154th Open. pic.twitter.com/M6YxCYEuXA
The putt, and the phone call after it
Fox described the closing stretch with the kind of honesty players usually save for well after the trophy has been handed over. “I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them,” he said of his approach and lay-up work coming home. “I didn’t feel anything for the putt, everything was shaking that much. I was just happy to hit it somewhat near the hole, and to see it go in was incredible.” Off the green, phone pressed to his ear to his family back home, he was heard saying, “You asked me to bring a trophy home, and I am, aren’t I?” It is the kind of line that only sounds understated because of how much sat behind it.
Fox’s win makes him only the second New Zealander to lift the Claret Jug, following Bob Charles at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1963, and it arrives at the age of 39 years, five months and 27 days, in his 94th start on the PGA Tour.
Ryan Fox wins The Open Championship, his third PGA TOUR title and first major championship in his 94th start on TOUR at the age of 39 years, 5 months, 27 days.
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) July 19, 2026
⁰Becomes the second player from New Zealand to win The Open Championship, joining Bob Charles (1963/Royal Lytham & St…
Where it leaves the rest of the field
Sam Burns settled for solo third at eight under, two shots back, a finish that will sting less by the time next season starts than it did walking off the 18th green on Sunday. Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood, rounds of 67 and 68 respectively, tied for fourth, close enough to the lead all week to suggest that on a slightly different Sunday either of them takes the trophy home instead. Neither will look back on Royal Birkdale as a week gone wrong so much as a week Ryan Fox simply refused to give up.
What made this Open worth watching from Thursday onward was never really in doubt by the closing holes: a course playing firm and fast enough to produce three rounds of 62 across four days, and a leaderboard stacked with players good enough to win it right up until someone actually did. It says something about the depth of the modern game that the eventual champion was a 39-year-old with three tour wins to his name and no previous top-fifteen finish in a major, and something rather better about golf itself that Royal Birkdale let him prove it on the very last hole.