Southport, England. The 154th Open Championship ended with an exciting conclusion as New Zealander Ryan Fox sank a 12-foot birdie putt at the final hole to edge American Cameron Young by one shot.

Fox followed his round of 62 scored on Saturday with a two-under-par 68 on the final day for a weekend total of 130. That tied the final 36-holes scoring originally set by Tom Watson in 1977 when winning The Open at Turnberry and matched by several others since.

Fox made his move on the inward half with four birdies over the final six holes — culminating with an epic final putt on the finishing hole which was the most challenging throughout the championship.

Young scored the day’s lowest round with a 64 but a closing bogey at the demanding 18th opened the door slightly for a range of various pursuers including third round leader Sam Burns, Si Woo Kim and world number one player Scottie Scheffler.

The euphoria of the moment had Fox place his hands high in the air as the jubilant gallery that encircled the 18th green roared its approval. For Fox, the moment was one beyond imagination.

“Surreal, to be honest. It’s something you dream of. I used to get up in the middle of the night to watch this tournament back home. It was always something that was there just to be able to play in it, first up, and now to be an Open champion, to be the Champion Golfer of the Year, it’s unbelievable, surreal, crazy. I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to explain it, to be honest.”

After missing a go-ahead 10-foot birdie putt at the par-5 17th, Fox relayed to his caddie (Dean Smith) that he was prepared to play aggressively at the demanding closing hole.

“I mean, I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them. 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.

“I did say to my caddie, Dean, on the tee 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. To go out there and execute, that drive is not a very comfortable tee shot, obviously, and to hit it in the fairway and give myself a chance was huge.”

Fox’s tee shot split the treacherous bunkers and came to rest 327 yards in perfect position.

“Then I landed on a good number. I think I had 160 meters to the hole. The breeze was a little down off the left. Obviously, everything is a bit jammed up there, so it was just a solid 9, and I hit it exactly where I wanted to hit it. I think I screamed to it — ‘Please be good,’ in the air, and it was.”

Fox becomes just the second golfer to have matched the 18-hole scoring mark of 62 and then go onward to win the championship (Xander Schauffele did similarly when winning the ’24 PGA Championship).

The 39-year-old becomes just the third man to have captured a major championship joining Bob Charles (1963 Open Championship) and Michael Campbell (’05 US Open).

He is also the oldest major champion in a decade since Henrik Stenson beat Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon in 2016.

The momentum for Fox began at the demanding 13th.

“That tee shot on 13, I hit driver off it every day this week and executed it twice and not executed it twice, but played it even-par for the week, which I guess is pretty good overall.

“I kind of took the theory around the whole golf course this week that, if you take it on, at least if you miss it, you can kind of get it up to a wedge out. If you don’t take it on and lay back and stuff it up, you’re in a really bad place.

“So that tee shot was huge. I hit it exactly where I wanted to hit it.

“To take advantage of that, obviously I hit a lob wedge in there and holed a 12-15-footer, probably just snuck in the right edge. But yeah, that started the momentum on that back nine.”

Fox has had past success with two wins on the PGA Tour – highlighted by his 2025 victory in the RBC Canadian Open. On the European Tour he has garnered five wins with the most recent highlight coming with a triumph in the ’23 BMW PGA Championship.

Until his success this week at Royal Birkdale, his record in past major events has been limited. In 28 events prior to this year’s Open Championship, Fox had 28 collective appearances with just six top-25 finishes but none in the top 15.

Fox’s mantra when setting up to play any golf shot has been to keep matters moving via the expression “see shot” and then “hit shot.”

The move upwards in the professional ranks took plenty of will power to stay the course.

“Why it’s a slow burn? I don’t know. It took — I was a rookie on the DP World Tour at 30. I was a rookie on the PGA Tour at 37 and now a major champion at 39. I’m definitely not following the trend at the moment. But if I can keep getting better a little bit every year, I’ll be pretty happy.

“I said it earlier; if you’d have given me my career up till yesterday when I first turned pro, I would have jumped at it. Now I probably would have killed people for it (laughter).”

Fox’s closing performance over the last several holes rightly earned him the famed Claret Jug and the tagline — “Champion Golfer of the Year.”

***

Thisa & Thata

Ryan Fox 72 – 68,62, 68 — 270 (-10)

• Fox is the second New Zealander to win The Open, with Bob Charles being the first in 1963 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Hr is the lowest ranked winner of The Open in the OWGR since Darren Clarke in 2011 (Clarke was ranked 111th; Fox is ranked 56th).

• Fox has broken the record for lowest position on the leaderboard after the first round to come back to win The Open – Fox was tied-85th, seven strokes behind the leader after the first round. The previous record was from 1998 when Mark O’Meara was tied-62nd after the first round, also at Royal Birkdale.

•  He is only the sixth Champion to come back from seven or more strokes behind after the first round to win The Open. (11 strokes: Harry Vardon, 1896; eight strokes: George Duncan, 1920, Seve Ballesteros, 1979; seven strokes: Gary Player, 1959; Mark O’Meara, 1998).

•  Fox has broken the record for lowest position on the leaderboard after the second round to come back to win The Open – Fox was tied-52nd, eight strokes behind the leader after the second round. The previous record was from 2001 when David Duval was tied-35th after the second round at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Fox has equaled the second biggest ever comeback in terms of strokes behind after the second round. Fox was eight strokes behind – the only player with a bigger comeback was George Duncan in 1920, who was 13 strokes behind.

•  Fox is the first Champion with a round of 62 during The Open that he won. Fox is the fourth Champion with a round of 63 or lower during The Open that he won (Greg Norman, 63 second round 1986; Henrik Stenson, 63 final round 2016; Shane Lowry, 63 third round 2019; Ryan Fox, 62 third round).

•  He equaled the record over the final 36 holes of 130 strokes (Tom Watson, 1977; Ian Baker-Finch, 1991; Anders Forsbrand, 1994; Marc Leishman, 2022; Ryan Fox, 2026).

•  Fox is the first player to birdie the final hole of The Open to win since Cameron Smith in 2022.

Cameron Young 67 – 67, 73, 64 – 271 (-9)

•  Cameron Young finished his round at 16:08 and set a target of nine-under-par whilst the last group was approaching the 8th green. Young finishes as runner-up at The Open for the second time having also been second on his first appearance in 2022 at St Andrews.

Sam Burns 73 – 62, 65, 72 – 272 (-8)

•  Sam Burns has finished third at The 154th Open which is his best performance in his sixth appearance.

Tommy Fleetwood – Consecutive rounds under 70 – overall

•  Tommy Fleetwood now has seven consecutive rounds under 70 in The Open (second round 2025 to final round 2026). Fleetwood has equalled the record for the most consecutive rounds under 70 (with Ernie Els – first round 1993 to third round 1994). Fleetwood’s last seven rounds in The Open have been 68, 69, 67, 69, 67, 69, 68.

Scottie Scheffler 68 – 68, 70, 67 – 273 (-7)

•  In finishing tied-4th Scottie Scheffler has produced the best finish of the defending champion since Pádraig Harrington’s back-to-back successes in 2007 and 2008. Scheffler has played 24 rounds in The Open since his debut in 2021 and 14 of those have been under 70.

Miscellaneous

•  Number of Champions In the 154 Opens held: 92 different Champion Golfers of the Year. 27 players have won The Open more than once. 63 Opens have resulted in a repeat winner (the 27 players have won 89 Opens between them).

•  Longest Span of First-Time Winners: Ryan Fox’s win at Royal Birkdale this year extends the current streak of first-time winners of The Open. The streak currently sits at thirteen first-time Champions, the record for the longest span of first-time winners. The streak started with Phil Mickelson in 2013 through to Fox in 2026. The only span of first-time winners in majors that is longer is the period of 19 winners of the PGA Championship between 1952 and 1970. The last player to have won The Open on two or more occasions was Ernie Els in 2012.

•  Consecutive rounds under 70: Tommy Fleetwood was the only player to complete all four rounds under 70 at The 154th Open. There are now 13 different players that have managed to score four consecutive rounds in the 60s in an Open (Ernie Els 1993 and 2004, Greg Norman 1993, Nick Price 1994, Jesper Parnevik 1994, Tiger Woods 2000, Rickie Fowler 2014, Henrik Stenson 2016, Jordan Spieth 2017 and 2021, Collin Morikawa 2021, Mackenzie Hughes 2021, Nicolai Højgaard 2025, Scottie Scheffler 2025 and Tommy Fleetwood 2026).

•  Of the thirteen players, Norman, Price, Woods, Stenson, Spieth, Morikawa and Scheffler achieved this when winning The Open.

•  Stroke average Stroke average for the final round was 70.603: Cumulatively for the final round the field was 47-over-par, and they were 345-over-par for the four rounds. The stroke average for the four rounds was 70.739, over a stroke lower than the figure for 2017 of 71.852.

•  Hardest /Easiest Hole: The hardest hole of the final round was the 15th with a stroke average of 3.410. There were three birdies, 45 pars, 27 bogeys, one double-bogey and two others. The hardest hole of the week was 18th with a stroke average of 4.345. This is the first time in the six stagings of The Open at Royal Birkdale since records were kept that the 6th has not been the hardest hole of the week. There were only 28 birdies at the 18th all week, with the last of those proving decisive.

-The easiest hole of the final round was the par-5 17th for the fourth round running with a stroke average of 4.667, and there were six holes that played under-par (the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 14th and 17th). There were two eagles, 32 birdies, 35 pars, eight bogeys and one other at the 17th. The 17th was the easiest hole of the week with a stroke average of 4.623.

•  Bogey-free rounds and Lowest Round of the Day: Only two players completed bogey-free rounds in the final round of The 154th Open; John Parry and Casey Jarvis. There have been six bogey-free rounds in The 154th Open. In 2017, there were fourteen bogey-free rounds. Cameron Young’s round of 64 was the lowest of the final round. Lucas Herbert, Sam Burns and Ryan Fox shot the lowest rounds of the week with their record-equaling rounds of 62.

•  Longest Drive: Pierceson Coody averaged the longest drive in the final round with 359.0 yards. Drives are measured on the 14th and the 17th. Coody also hit the longest drive of the day with a drive of 374.3 yards on the 17th.

•  Jack McDonald was at the top for driving accuracy in the final round with twelve of 14 fairways hit.

•  Cameron Young was at the top of the greens in regulation statistic with 15 out of 18 greens hit.

•  Casey Jarvis, Bryson DeChambeau, Kristoffer Reitan, Matt Wallace, Naoyuki Kataoka, Marcus Plunkett and Ryan Fox were the best putters in the field, taking 26 putts over the 18 holes, an average of 1.44 putts per green.

•  Total attendance for the week at Royal Birkdale exceeded 300,000. This turnout makes the 154th Open Championship the most well-attended in the event’s long history.

•  The 2027 Open Championship will be played on the Old Course at St. Andrews (July 15-18).

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