Rich on Ryan Fox’s Memorable and Bryson DeChambeau’s Forgettable 2026 Open Championship

Twenty-two seconds. That is how long Ryan Fox waited after Sam Burns holed out before he stood over the putt that won him the Open Championship.

That detail is the whole man, and it is why Rich could not stop talking about the weekend at Royal Birkdale.

Start with the improbability. Fox is a Kiwi who did not start playing golf until he was 17. He did not win anything until his mid-20s, and that was as an amateur. He had never finished in the top 10 at a major. His family line runs through rugby and cricket, a bloodline of athletes that did not obviously point at a Claret Jug.

He was also tied for 52nd after the first two rounds, which the show noted is the largest comeback in major history by an eventual winner.

The leaderboard churned all day. Si Woo Kim looked like the story at the turn. Sam Burns got to 11 under and then faltered. Cam Young posted nine under early, when the wind was softer, and then sat in the clubhouse for two and a half hours to see whether the number would hold up.

It did not, because of what Fox did over the last four holes. And Rich made the point that the birdies are not actually the impressive part.

On the par-three 15th, tied with Young, Fox found one of those classic Open pot bunkers with a wall in front of him and the ball tucked right up against it.

"Well, that's it for him," Rich remembered thinking.

Instead, Fox stepped in, looked at the situation, and took his medicine immediately. Get up and down for bogey, go back to work. Then he birdied 16 and was right back where he had been before the bunker ever happened.

On the par-five 17th he took an iron off the tee and still ran it into a fairway bunker more than 300 yards away, because the course was baked. He scrambled to a birdie look and missed it by the narrowest of margins.

Then 18, where the hole was playing close to impossible. Fox hit a perfect drive and a perfect nine iron, and his birdie was only the fourth of the day on that green. He finished the final round in four hours, which is unheard of at a major, because he refuses to let negative thoughts creep in through overanalysis.

Sitting next to the Claret Jug afterward, Fox undercut every bit of the calm he projected.

"I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them," he said. "And 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."

The plan was set before he teed off. "I did say to my caddy Dean on the tee that we were going to take it on, that I was going to try to win the tournament," Fox said, "and I'd live with the consequences if I stuffed it up."

He had 160 metres in, a breeze slightly down off the left, and a solid nine iron. "I think I screamed at it, please be good in the air," he said. "And it was."

As for the putt, Fox punctured the fantasy everyone has on a practice green. "It's not like that in real life. It's not a very comfortable feeling, but it's certainly very enjoyable when you see it go in."

The postscript is perfect. There is video going around of Fox flying back to Florida with the Claret Jug stowed in the overhead compartment. Nobody is checking that bag. Cam Young, who bogeyed 18, was apparently on the same flight.

Fox's win also had the effect of shoving Bryson DeChambeau's weekend off the radar, which DeChambeau helped along by shooting 69 and 72, respectable scores nobody was talking about.

What people were talking about was Friday, and the two-stroke penalty for improving his lie in thick gorse. The issue was not the lie. It was the swing path, which you are not permitted to improve at all. The debate over intent has been circular, though at some point, Rich said, you are watching the footage and asking whether the man is doing the macarena in there.

Some players closed ranks and said flatly he is not a cheater. Then Rory McIlroy stepped to the podium, and as Rich put it, if there was a pile of dirt nearby, McIlroy pulled out the big dog of a shovel and kept going.

"I think there's no doubt that he improved the line of his back swing," McIlroy said. "Whether it was careless or whether it was intentional, I don't think it matters. Hopefully it was careless. But I think the two shot penalty was justified for sure."

He was not finished.

"I won't pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I'm not particularly fond of him," McIlroy said. "I think a lot of it's performative. I think a lot of it's for attention. And to hold the tournament hostage like that and have all of us, volunteers, players, everyone waiting on him to depart, I didn't feel like it was a great look."

Rich gave DeChambeau a fair hearing on one count. Being told you are losing two shots will set anybody off, and being called a cheater on top of it takes a while to shake. He also noted DeChambeau is on camera for every shot, which plenty of his colleagues are not.

Then there is The Telegraph's reporting that DeChambeau warned officials he was ready to call President Trump during the standoff. Rich's response was to size up the opponent.

"You're dealing with the royal and ancient," he said. "Once upon a time, our predecessors told Braveheart he couldn't improve his lie."

"That was a dramatic weekend at Royal Birkdale," Rich said. "What a royal drama that was."