SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — Ryan Fox is the British Open champion, and it's going to take time for that to sink in no matter how many times he watches the replay of a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole, or how many times he stares at his name on the base of the silver claret jug.
“I don't know if it’s something I’ve dreamed of. I don’t know if it’s something I ever thought was possible,” Fox said after his one-shot victory Sunday. "But we're here now.”
It's how he got there that sets him apart from so many other names on golf's oldest trophy.
Never mind the son of All Blacks rugby great Grant Fox didn't play golf competitively until he was 17, or that all he ever wanted was to have a card on any tour. Fox had never finished better than a tie for 16th in 28 majors before arriving at Royal Birkdale.
And to think Fox nearly quit before he even got started.
It was his second year on the PGA Tour of Australasia and Fox was about to lose his card with two events left in the season when he went to the Australian Masters at Royal Melbourne.
“My dad came over and caddied for me, and he said to me, ‘Why do you play this game?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s supposed to be fun.’ But it wasn’t really very fun at the time,” Fox said Sunday night, the silver claret jug at his side. “He goes, ‘Well, let’s just go out this week try to have some fun.”
He did well enough to keep his card, and before long Fox was on his way on a path that culminated with a putt he only imagined in his dreams — a 12-foot birdie, the final shot of the 154th Open, middle of the cup, arms raised, face awash in joy and disbelief.
“Everyone practices on the green — you’ve got a putt to win a major championship, to win The Open. It’s not like that in real life. It’s not a very comfortable feeling,” Fox said. “It’s certainly very enjoyable when you see it go in.”
Royal Birkdale now has two Open champions from Down Under. Fox joined Ian Baker-Finch, the Australian who won on these links in 1991 and who was here this week to promote his book, “To Hell and Back.”
It wasn't that way for Fox. He was more of a slow, steady rise. He had three wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia, three more on the European tour (including the BMW PGA Championship) and two wins on the PGA Tour last year that included a playoff win over Sam Burns in the Canadian Open.
“Why it's a slow burn? I don't know,” Fox said as he contemplated his timeline — European tour rookie at age 30, PGA Tour rookie at age 37, major champion at age 39. He's the oldest first-time major champion since Henrik Stenson was 40 at Royal Troon in 2016.
“If you’d have given me my career up till yesterday when I first turned pro, I would have jumped at it,” he said. “Now I probably would have killed people for it.”
Fox showed plenty of resiliency in the final round of a British Open that kept a record crowd guessing until the very end.
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He was among four players who had at least a share of the lead, with Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood on the fringe of joining the fray at various points. One by one they fell to the side until the target became Cameron Young.
The American had to scramble for bogey on the 18th hole more than two hours earlier, hitting the face of a pot bunker right of the fairway, then nearly holing a bunker shot by the green for par. It added to a 64, the best round of the day. And for the longest time, it looked like it might hold up.
“I gave it everything I had all the way through,” Young said when he finished. He declined interviews after hearing the roar from the practice range as he warmed up for a potential playoff.
Fox made birdie on four of his last six holes for a 2-under 68. It was a bogey that was just as crucial. He was tied for the lead when his tee shot on the par-3 15th caromed off the top face of a bunker and landed next to the edge of the lip.
He had no shot at the pin, much less the green. He blasted out away from the green and onto the fairway, 45 yards from the hole. He pitched it to 6 feet and made the bogey putt.
“I felt a whole lot better walking off that green making bogey that way than probably even if I’d have made par," Fox said.
A birdie on the 16th allowed him to catch Young again, and then came the final test. The 18th at Royal Birkdale is so tough only four of the 76 players to that point had made birdie.
A par would put him in a three-hole playoff. A bogey would give the title to Young, who had been runner-up at St. Andrews in 2022 and had another close call at the Masters this year.
Fox was thinking big.
“I did say to my caddie Dean (Smith) that we were going to take it on, that I was going to try to win the tournament, and I’d live with the consequences if I stuffed it up,” Fox said.
It turned out to be the stuff of major champions.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
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