Ryan Fox Wins The Open at Royal Birkdale With a Birdie on the Final Hole

Ryan Fox stood on the 18th tee at Royal Birkdale tied for the lead of The Open, with a career's worth of patience riding on one last swing. He split the fairway, hit 9-iron from 175 yards to about 12 feet and rolled in the putt that made a 39-year-old New Zealander the Champion Golfer of the Year.

Fox closed with a 2-under 68 to finish at 10-under 270 and win the 154th Open Championship by one shot over Cameron Young, who fired a final-round 64. Fifty-four-hole leader Sam Burns shot 72 and finished solo third at 8 under. Tommy Fleetwood and defending champion Scottie Scheffler tied for fourth at 7 under, and Si Woo Kim, Lucas Herbert and Casey Jarvis shared sixth at 6 under.

Young Sets the Number

The first punch came from well ahead of the leaders. Young teed off just after noon, when the wind was calmer, and tore through the front nine with birdies at 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9 to turn in 29. Four straight pars followed, then birdies at 14 and 17 pushed him to 10 under, per The R&A.

The 18th took one back. His drive found a fairway bunker, his second clipped the lip and his third found a greenside bunker. His bunker shot nearly dropped for par. The bogey left him at 9-under 271, and he sat atop the leaderboard for about two hours while the final groups played, per the AP.

"I gave it everything I had all the way through," Young said, per the AP. It is his second runner-up finish at The Open, after St Andrews in 2022.

Burns Loses His Grip

Burns started two clear, but the record-setting 36 holes that carried him to the lead did not follow him to the first tee. He made three straight bogeys from the fourth through the sixth, including a pitch that ran over the back of the fifth green, and he did not make a birdie over his final 12 holes. Burns told reporters he simply did not have his best stuff, and a 72 left him two back.

Kim stepped into the vacuum. A putt from off the green at the sixth gave Kim the lead, and Kim still held it at the turn. Then bogeys at 11 and 12 ended the charge, and a back-nine 40 meant a 72 and a tie for sixth.

The Fox Finish

For a while, Fox looked like he would end up as a footnote to Young's 64. He missed a 6-foot par putt at the 11th, which left him 1 over for the day and two shots behind Young's clubhouse total.

Then the back nine flipped. Fox made a 12-footer for birdie at 13 and set up a 3-footer at the par-5 14th to tie Young at 9 under. At 15 his tee shot caromed off a bunker and left him with no stance, so he played out to the fairway, pitched from 45 yards to 6 feet and walked off with a bogey. He answered right away, holing a 10-footer at 16 to get back to 9 under. He missed a birdie chance at 17. Then came the 18th, the drive, the 9-iron and the putt.

That made four birdies over his final six holes. "Look, it is a dream come true," Fox said, per the AP. He also admitted to The R&A that his nerves were everywhere over the final putt.

How Fox Got Here

The win is staggering on paper. Fox opened with a 72 and was seven shots back in a tie for 85th after Thursday, then sat tied for 52nd after 36 holes, eight off the lead. According to The R&A, no Open champion has ever won from that far down the leaderboard at the halfway point. His Saturday 62 tied the major championship record, and his weekend of 130 matched the lowest closing 36 holes in Open history.

He did it with the putter. The R&A's numbers had Fox first in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting at plus 8.389, with 21 birdies, the most of anyone, and just 26 putts on Sunday.

It is also a late-blooming story. Fox was a European Tour rookie at 30 and a PGA TOUR rookie at 37, per the AP. This is his 10th win worldwide and by far the biggest, eclipsing the 2023 BMW PGA Championship. He is the oldest first-time major champion since Henrik Stenson at Royal Troon in 2016, and he joins Bob Charles, the 1963 Open champion, and Michael Campbell, the 2005 U.S. Open winner, as New Zealand's major winners.

Hometown Heartache and a Defense Falls Short

Fleetwood gave Southport everything it wanted for a few hours. Starting five back, he holed a long birdie putt at the first, added birdies at five and eight and got within one of the lead. A gust carried his approach through the ninth green and started three straight bogeys from nine through 11. He closed birdie, birdie for a 68. "The eighth was pretty emotional," Fleetwood told The R&A.

Scheffler made his title defense interesting late. He birdied three of his first five holes and got to 8 under after a birdie at 17, but a bogey at the last left him at 67 and 7 under. It is his fourth top 10 at The Open.

DeChambeau's week ended in frustration. A lost ball led to a triple bogey at the 11th, and he shot 72 to tie for 14th. Suber, Thursday's leader, closed with 74 and tied for 28th.

A Claret Jug for the Patient

Birkdale gave up three 62s this week, and the man who shot the last of them now owns the Claret Jug. Fox spent years as a late arrival on golf's biggest stages. On Sunday, with the wind rising and a 64 waiting in the clubhouse, he played the final six holes like a man who had been waiting his whole life for them.

Catch up on the full week from Royal Birkdale: Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3. Final scoring is on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and the AP's final-round report (opens in a new tab) has more.

Sources: PGA TOUR (AP final-round report, live updates and leaderboard), The R&A (theopen.com), Golf Channel, AP. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.