Ryan Fox Wins the RBC Canadian Open on the Fourth Playoff Hole With the Best Shot of His Life

Ryan Fox waited a long time for his first PGA TOUR win. The second one took four weeks.

Fox beat Sam Burns on the fourth playoff hole Sunday to win the RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley, sealing it with a 3-wood from about 270 yards that stopped 7 feet from the hole on the par-5 18th. Two putts later, the 38-year-old New Zealander had his second TOUR title since May. Fox closed with a bogey-free 4-under 66, Burns posted a 62 from well back, and both finished regulation at 18-under 262. Kevin Yu birdied the last for a 66 and finished alone in third, one shot out of the playoff.

Burns Posts the Number

Starting the day four back and tied for 16th, Burns shot 8-under 62, the round of the day, and capped it with a birdie on the 18th. That left the clubhouse lead at 18 under, and Burns signed his card roughly two hours before Fox and Matteo Manassero, the 54-hole co-leaders, finished.

At one point before the final group even teed off, eight players shared the lead. Shane Lowry briefly owned it outright after opening with an eagle and three straight birdies, but he faded and bogeyed the last two holes to tie for 13th. Cameron Young had the best chance to beat Burns' number. Young saved par from the trees on the 17th and needed a birdie at the last, but his 3-wood flew the green into the trees and he made bogey to finish two back in a tie for fourth with Matt McCarty.

"I couldn't have hit two better shots on the last hole," Young said.

Fox Chases It Down

Fox had most of his round left when Burns posted, which meant he knew exactly what he needed. He birdied the 14th and 15th to get within one, then rolled in a birdie putt from just inside 18 feet on the 18th to tie Burns and force a playoff. Manassero, who started the day sharing the lead, shot 69 and tied for sixth.

A Pillow Fight, Then a Haymaker

The playoff went four trips down the 576-yard 18th, and for three of them nobody could land a punch.

On the first extra hole, Burns had a birdie putt from just over 5 feet and pushed it right. Fox, meanwhile, pushed his 3-wood toward the water, and only a collar of rough kept it dry. He pitched to 12 feet and missed by a foot. After two extra holes the grounds crew moved the pin from the far left to the front right, closer to the water, and the hole changed character. Burns' lob wedge on the next trip came up short and right and nearly spun back into the hazard. Both players kept making pars.

"To be honest, Sam and I had a bit of a pillow fight for three holes," Fox said.

Then came the fourth. Fox took dead aim at the new pin with a 3-wood that landed softly just left of the flag and settled 7 feet away. Burns pulled his 3-wood about 55 feet left, ran his eagle putt 8 feet past and lipped out the comeback. Fox missed his eagle try and tapped in for the win.

"But that shot I hit on 18, that 3-wood, was probably the best shot I've ever hit," Fox said.

Two Wins, One Month

Fox won the Myrtle Beach Classic on May 11 with a chip-in birdie on the first playoff hole to beat Harry Higgs and Canada's Mackenzie Hughes. Before that, his playoff record on the European Tour was 0-2, with losses to Russell Knox at the 2018 Irish Open and Victor Perez at the 2022 Dutch Open.

The win is worth $1,764,000 and 500 FedExCup points, and it moved Fox from No. 60 to No. 25 in the FedExCup standings. The bigger prize may be Oakmont. Fox started the week No. 75 in the world and jumped to No. 32, comfortably inside the top 60 that earned spots in next week's U.S. Open. He already had a place in The Open from his 2023 BMW PGA Championship win. Fox now has eight worldwide wins: two on the PGA TOUR, four on the DP World Tour and two on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

There was a fitting New Zealand flavor to the finish, too. Fox's father, Grant Fox, was a fly half on the All Blacks team that won the 1987 Rugby World Cup, and New Zealand's men's soccer team, the All Whites, turned up on Sunday to support him. Fox celebrated on the 18th green holding his two daughters.

The Near Misses

Burns was chasing his sixth TOUR title and his first since the final edition of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2023. A closing 62 that does not win is a strange kind of heartbreak, but it was the low round of the weekend.

Yu, in third, narrowly missed climbing into the top 60 in the world, so Oakmont will have to wait. Yu, Young and McCarty did earn spots in The Open next month as the top three not already exempt.

Nick Taylor finished as the low Canadian, tied for 13th at 13 under, and heads to Oakmont next. Cameron Champ, the eighth alternate who led after 36 holes, closed with 67 and tied for ninth.

What It Means

Fox arrived at the PGA TOUR as a respected DP World Tour winner who had not quite cracked it in America. Five weeks ago he had never won on the PGA TOUR. Now he has two titles, a U.S. Open tee time and a top-25 spot in the FedExCup standings. TPC Toronto will host this event again next year, and it will be hard to top this finish.

Revisit the week in our Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3 recaps. Full results are on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and the TOUR's final-round recap (opens in a new tab) has more.

Sources: PGA TOUR (final-round recap, Wire to Wire, leaderboard), AP, The Canadian Press via TSN, The Golf News Net. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.