Ryan Fox Is Still Processing His Improbable 2026 Open Championship Win

Two missed cuts. That is how close Ryan Fox came to never being a professional golfer at all, and he knows the exact week it turned.

The new Open Championship winner walked Rich through a career path that makes no sense on paper and total sense once he explains it. Fox joined the PGA Tour at 37. He did not start playing golf seriously until he was 17. He is holding the Claret Jug at 39.

The family did not lack for athletic pedigree. Fox's maternal grandfather played cricket for New Zealand. His father played for the All Blacks. Fox grew up on rugby and cricket, played golf as a kid, and was a two handicapper at 16 or 17 who could get around his home course and not much else.

Golf only became the plan when he started a law degree at university, decided law was not for him, and picked up tournament golf in his first year just to have something competitive to do.

"I absolutely loved it," Fox said. "That was me done." He finished a degree anyway, arts and psychology, at his parents' insistence that he have something to fall back on. His assessment of those four years was blunt. "I don't think I've used anything that I learned."

He turned pro at 25, played the Aussie tour, then the Challenge Tour in Europe, then arrived as a DP World Tour rookie around 30.

The near miss came in his second year as a pro. Not the money, he said. He was just playing badly, well out of keeping his card, coming off a terrible missed cut at the Australian PGA. His dad flew over to caddie for him at the Aussie Masters, a strong field with big international names in the country ahead of the World Cup of Golf.

"I remember my dad going to me, you know, why do you play golf? And I said, well, it's supposed to be fun," Fox said. "But it was the opposite of fun at that time. And he said, well, okay, one goal this week is to go out and try to have some fun and we'll see what happens."

Fox finished fifth, kept his card, took the pressure off the rest of the season, and played great the following year.

"I was two tournaments away from getting a normal job probably at that point," he said. "If I'd have missed those two cuts or whatever, I wouldn't be a golfer."

Which is what made the FaceTime calls after Sunday hit the way they did. Fox spoke first to his wife and kids in Florida, where a fellow golfer and his family had been watching alongside them. His kids had asked him earlier in the week whether he could bring a trophy home. He had told them it was not overly easy to bring this particular one home.

Then he called his parents in New Zealand, who had stayed up all night and were somewhere around five or six in the morning when he got them.

"My dad definitely would have been pacing all over the lounge watching, I think," Fox said.

He is not finished with that moment yet. The family is planning a trip back to New Zealand in the next couple of weeks, and Fox was clear about why. Talking to his dad on the phone is one thing. Handing him the Claret Jug is another.

"I wouldn't say it'd be lonely," Fox said of staying put in Florida, "but we'd feel like we're missing out."

Asked about the picture of himself reading his own name on the trophy, Fox admitted he had not seen the photo yet. Rich had a suggestion. Get that one for the office.