The Open Championship: Ryan Fox drains the putt of his life to claim the Claret Jug

What does the Fox say? 

"I'm the Champion Golfer of the Year," of course. 

Ryan Fox, who prior to this week had never finished higher than T16 in a major, stormed into Royal Birkdale, eluded all the rules drama that consumed the entire week, and proceeded to claim the Claret Jug and a share of the record for lowest score in a men's major round. Not a bad week's work. 

It comes at the expense of a grueling game of wait and see for Cam Young, who came from seven shots back entering Sunday's final round to take the clubhouse lead. Just after 4 p.m. local time, Young established the score to beat — 9-under — when Fox was still playing his first nine. 

A bogey at 9 and another at 11 seemingly ejected Fox from contention. But three birdies on the back got him back in contention, and then the drama …

Tied with Young heading to No. 18, Fox needed a birdie to avoid a playoff. To that point, the 18th had only yielded four birdies all day — and only 27 all week, fewest of any hole on the course.

The 39-year-old New Zealander piped his drive down the middle, then threw a dart to within 11 feet of the cup, setting up the opportunity of his lifetime.

Drain it and he would be an Open champion.

When it dropped, Fox lifted his arms in triumph.

“To play that last hole how I did, I stood on the tee and said to my caddie Dean, we're going to try to win this,” Fox explained. “I hit two perfect shots. I'm not sure how I hit the putt. As I said, my hands were all over the place. I was just trying to get it towards the hole somewhere. It's surreal that it went in.”

The Bryson DeChambeau show

The enduring image of the 154th Open Championship will be Fox lifting the Claret Jug. But the enduring storylines will include Bryson DeChambeau vs. the R&A and the number 62.

Let's start with DeChambeau vs. the R&A, golf's governing body on the other side of the pond. 

The ruling that docked DeChambeau two shots for "improving his lie" on the fifth hole of Round 2 hijacked the tournament in the early going, and had everyone taking sides. In one camp were the DeChambeau haters — pundits like Brandel Chamblee and players like Rory McIlroy. It was McIlroy, in particular, who called DeChambeau's theatrics — which ranged from an animated on-course "disagreement" with R&A officials followed by a lengthy practice session deep into the Royal Birkdale night all of which led to the question of would DeChambeau withdraw from the tournament altogether — "performative."

"I won't pretend to be up here and defend Bryson," McIlroy said. "I'm not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it's performative. I think a lot of it's for attention."

Never mind that McIlroy has frequently been "performative" himself — remember when he swiped a phone from a fan's hand? Or when he stormed out of the parking lot at the 2023 Ryder Cup? Or when he yelled at a fan a couple months ago at the PGA Championship? Or when he … you get the point — DeChambeau and his lucrative venture over to LIV Golf coupled with his focus on his YouTube channel has made him a man on an island. 

Where, exactly, does he fit in?

Add in his quirks — do you 3D print your golf clubs? — and he's become an easy target … who also happens to be insanely popular with the fans. 

When he stepped to the tee on Saturday in the wake of the two-shot penalty that dropped him from solo second all the way to fifth — he'd announced via social media late Friday night that he would play, ending the withdraw speculation — the crowd at Royal Birkdale welcomed him with nothing but cheers, exposing the divide between media and fan perception.

Ultimately, though, DeChambeau would never fully recover from the penalty — never able to go low enough to catch those above him on the leaderboard. He would fade to a T14 finish.

What about those 62s?

There have been eight 62s carded at major tournaments. Four of them have been shot at Royal Birkdale, and three in the last three days. 

One of those 62s — Lucas Herbert's — was nearly a 61. Herbert had a 4-footer on 18 for par that would have given him a 61, which would have been the lowest-ever score at a major championship. Unfortunately for Herbert the putt just slipped by, about the only way a 62 could be disappointing. 

Still, it was on the back of those 62s that all three players — Herbert, Sam Burns and Fox — put themselves in contention for their first major championship.

For Burns, his presence atop the leaderboard heading into Sunday's final round was both expected and a surprise — expected because he's been there before (at last year's U.S. Open), unexpected because he wasn't even supposed to be at Royal Birkdale this week. Burns and his wife Caroline were expecting their second child, but she came two weeks early — on July 3 — allowing for Burns to make his way across the pond.

Burns has quietly been knocking on the door of his first major victory, holding the 54-hole lead a year ago at the U.S. Open, then finishing one shot back of Wyndham Clark a few weeks ago. It was set up for him again Sunday, after going 62-65 in Rounds 2 and 3 — the lowest consecutive round scores in major championship history. That provided him a two-shot 54-hole lead over Fox and Si Woo Kim.

Burns quickly lost all the advantage with three bogeys in his first six holes, and for him it became a game of catch up, one he ultimately could not win.

Young's rally wasn't necessarily inevitable, but it was foreseable.

Those 62s were all shot in the morning wave, when scoring conditions were ideal. It had turned this Open into a game of leapfrog, with Burns, Fox and Herbert coming from deep in the to jump above those at the top of the leaderboard.

That gave Young hope heading into the round despite trailing by seven shots. Seven birdies got him to -10 for the tournament, the exact number he entered the day thinking he needed to hit. But a bogey — that was this close to being a par — at 18 proved costly.

"I thought 10 had a decent chance," Young said after his round as he waited to see how the rest of the day would play out. "I've played around the lead in majors enough to know that scraping out even par on a Sunday in a major championship can be really difficult. So you figure those guys at the top, somebody's probably going to make a run, but I was just close enough where I felt like maybe the lead could stay the same. Right now that's holding true. So we'll see where we are at the end of the day."

Turns out, he missed a playoff by less than an inch.

Fox, meanwhile, was still trying to ride his third-round 62 on Saturday to victory on Sunday. Birdies at 13 and 14 got him into a tie with Young. But an ill-time bogey at 15 almost torpedoed his round and his championship. But he bounced right back with a birdie at 16, and a par at 17 set up the dramatic finish at 18 and the greatest FaceTime call of his life.