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Beachlands’ Ryan Fox is golf’s 154th Open champion.
Early this Monday morning NZ time, Fox produced what Golf New Zealand describes as “the round of his life” at the Royal Birkdale course, closing with a two-under 68 and a birdie on the 72nd hole to win the 154th Open Championship by one shot from American Cameron Young.
It’s Fox’s first major title, and it makes the 39-year-old just the third New Zealander to win a men’s major golf championship, following Sir Bob Charles’s 1963 Open win at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s, and Michael Campbell’s 2005 US Open triumph at Pinehurst.
Fox (son of All Black legend, Grant) is the first Kiwi to lift the Claret Jug since Charles did it 63 years ago.
Golf NZ says Fox began the final round two shots off overnight leader Sam Burns and had barely troubled the leaderboard through the middle of his round, dropping shots at the ninth and 11th that appeared to push him out of contention.
But four birdies across his last six holes turned the tournament on its head, including back-to-back birdies at 13 and 14 that pulled him level with Young, who had long since finished his round after a blistering final-day 64.
A bogey on the par three 15th, which may end as the greatest bogey of Fox’s career, saw him chip backwards out of a greenside bunker into the fairway and then hit it close and roll in the putt to only drop one shot.
“Yeah, I kind of missed by that much, and then I saw the walking commentator sort of look up, and I’m going, oh, no, I’m going to be in trouble here,” Fox says.
“I didn’t have any other choice but to hit it backwards. I think that up-and-down from kind of 20, 30 yards short of the green, that kept me in it.”
Golf NZ says with Burns fading under pressure and eventually finishing third at eight-under, it came down to Fox and Young at nine-under as Fox played the last.
Standing over a putt of around 3.6 metres on the 18th green, needing to make it to win outright, Fox rolled it in for the biggest moment of his career.
Golf NZ says he later admitted he could barely feel his hands over the putt, saying he was simply trying to get the ball up near the hole and was relieved to see it catch the left edge and drop.
It was only the fifth birdie recorded on the closing hole all day, on a course that had proven brutally difficult to finish on all week.
“It’s a dream come true,” says Fox. “Looking at this trophy now, it’s the first time I’ve seen it up close so it’s pretty amazing.
“I’m not sure how I hit the putt. My hands were all over the place, I was just trying to get it toward the hole somewhere.
“I played really solid early and had some great shots down the stretch. To play that last hole how I did, I stood on the tee box and said to my caddy Dean we’re going to try and win this.
“I hit two perfect shots. I’m not sure how I hit the putt. My hands were all over the place, I was just trying to get it toward the hole somewhere.
“It’s surreal that it went in and Champion Golfer of the Year has a nice ring to it,” Fox says.
“It’s always been, see a shot, hit a shot. As soon as I start thinking about it too much some bad stuff creeps in.
“That was the process down the stretch. I had some good numbers coming in for iron shots on 16, 17 and 18, and I just picked my shot, hit it and thankfully executed pretty well.”
The win completes a remarkable weekend for Fox, who shared the record for the lowest round in a men’s major with a third-round 62 before backing it up with Sunday’s closing 68 to finish the tournament at 10-under, says Golf NZ.
It caps a career that has already included victories on the DP World Tour, most notably the 2023 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, and back-to-back PGA Tour wins in 2025 at Myrtle Beach and the RBC Canadian Open.
Until this past week, Fox had never finished better than tied 16th in a major championship.
He now holds one of the sport’s oldest and most coveted trophies.
“I mean, you do dream of this moment. I don’t know whether I ever thought it was going to become a reality,” Fox says.
“Now it is, and to have my name etched in the history of the game is pretty awesome. I think it’s pretty awesome for New Zealand as well. It’s going to be big down there.
“I appreciate all the support from down there at home.”
Fox earns automatic entry into every future Open Championship until age 55, plus five-year exemptions into the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the Players Championship, and with it, a place in New Zealand sporting history alongside Charles, Campbell and Dame Lydia Ko as one of the country’s major champions.
Footage of Fox on the phone to his family in the moments after his win, overcome with emotion, has already been shared widely across golf and mainstream media worldwide.
Golf New Zealand says it congratulates Fox on becoming the 2026 Open Champion and Champion Golfer of the Year, a historic achievement for New Zealand golf and an inspiration to the next generation of Kiwi players.
