Why Ryan Fox was the perfect winner for a really strange Open week

SOUTHPORT, England — Golf, it’s a beautiful thing.

A year ago, the No. 1 player in the world went wire-to-wire at the Open Championship to claim a blowout victory. On Sunday, a little-known, 39-year-old PGA Tour lifer with just three career victories claimed his first solo lead of the week on the 72nd hole with a birdie putt for golfing immortality.

And best of all? He waited just 22 seconds to hit it.

Ryan Fox was not the victor the scriptwriters had in mind for this 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. In fact, he might arrive in the winner’s circle as the most compelling evidence against the scriptwriters, beating out hometown kid Tommy Fleetwood and major-winner-in-waiting Cam Young and new-dad Sam Burns en route to his narrative-altering win.

And yet there was something fitting about his run to the title on Sunday evening at this Open Championship, about the tears that fell in scoring as he talked with his parents shortly after that victory was complete. An exceedingly nice guy and exceedingly normal golfer winning a week in which golf showed its impressive penchant to be anything but nice or normal.

Consider the scene just 20 minutes before Fox arrived on the 18th green, when Bryson DeChambeau arrived before the enormous gallery along the 18th fairway. DeChambeau had won over the crowd at Royal Birkdale, but only after threatening to blow the joint altogether after a two-shot ruling went against him on Friday afternoon.

It’s impossible to say how that ruling affected the rest of Bryson’s weekend, but there is no questioning the way it affected the rest of the tournament weekend, when DeChambeau became equal-parts martyr and conquering hero, flaunting his way around the driving range deep into the night on Friday and holding everyone in the tournament (tee-time-waiting players included) up before playing two over-par rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

DeChambeau’s rumble in the crowd was prolific, as it was expected to be. He is one of the most popular players in golf. His silence after ending his day at 4 under, tied for a not-quite-competitive 14th, was equally expected. DeChambeau hasn’t spoken to the press all week, potentially as retribution for public criticism dolled by Nick Faldo, and Sunday was no different. He signed autographs and disappeared into the evening again, a pointed (if questionably necessary) argument made about his power and influence in the age of ascendant YouTube stardom.

Bryson’s bizarre week at Birkdale underlined a particularly absent stretch for golf’s “media” star. He leaves the majors in 2026 with the following record: three missed cuts, 1 sport-wide controversy sparked, 1 post-round interview granted. He will play LIV London next week, but considering the perilous financial state of his employers, there is a chance he does not play another round of significance until next April.

Fleetwood’s departure came after DeChambeau’s, even though his round ended a few minutes sooner. This was altogether fitting. If Bryson’s actions had given the general appearance of a golfer in a hurry to leave, Fleetwood’s had the look of a golfer totally unprepared for the week to end. In the end, three consecutive bogeys at the turn did the beloved local boy in. He closed with two splendid birdies to finish exactly three shots out of the lead. Then he signed autographs well into the night for a small ocean of Scouse children, who strained the ropelines all weekend and, in the end, jumped a fence to see their native son.

“Walking down 18 and the atmosphere out there, that was beyond stuff that I’ve dreamt of,” Fleetwood said after. “That was just stuff that I never imagined. The crowds were amazing, and they made it the most special week ever for me, and I can’t thank them enough.”

Cast against the responses to DeChambeau and Fleetwood, Fox’s walk up the 18th fairway elicited a roar of a different kind. He did not earn the adulation of the crowd on account of his fame or his zip code. In fact, for the vast majority of Sunday, he did not earn the attention of anybody at all. But Fox never stopped moving — charging down the closing stretch at Birkdale with birdies on the 13th, 14th and 16th holes.

By the time his drive blasted straight up the elevator-shaft 18th fairway and landed perfectly within striking distance, the crowd engulfing the 18th knew there might be something special afoot. Fox, a Kiwi, had battled all day and all week at Birkdale with the perfect kind of British golfing sensibility — keeping a good humor about the dastardly brown and bouncy conditions and darting around the course like he was worried he might miss a dinner date. He stepped to the ball in the fairway almost immediately after the group ahead of him cleared the green, blasting a “perfect 9-iron” to 10 feet.

“I see things fast,” Fox explained later. “I was the same when I was playing cricket growing up. I played almost every sport growing up, and tennis I wanted to hit the ball hard, and cricket I wanted to hit the ball hard. Everything just happened fast. I was never methodical at anything, to be honest, and it just carried over into golf.”

When he finally arrived in the shadow of the cavernous grandstand on 18, the crowd was not cheering for fame or favor — they were cheering out of genuine respect. And Fox rewarded their respect by stepping to his ball for the tournament clinching birdie putt a mere 22 seconds after Burns missed his own attempt to force a playoff.

When it fell into the center of the hole, Fox was not the only one who erupted. The crowds cheered as loud and as earnestly as they had all week.

The 154th Open could not have been more different than the 153rd. Different in texture and substance and starpower and drama and controversy and winner. And yet in this moment it could not have been more similar — a reminder that no matter how much changes in our strange world and our even stranger sport, some things just don’t.

Golf, it’s a beautiful thing.