New Zealanders wake to their fourth major champion after Ryan Fox wins Open Championship
Son of ex-rugby union star Grant Fox sinks 18th-hole putt to follow in footsteps of Bob Charles, Michael Campbell and Lydia Ko
When Ryan Fox rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Royal Birkdale to win the Open Championship by one shot, it was just past 5.30am in his homeland and the sun had not yet risen.
Most New Zealanders woke on Monday to a wintry morning and the news their small nation had its fourth major golf champion.
Those who followed Fox on television throughout the night were able to watch him lift the Claret Jug before heading bleary-eyed but happily to work.
Sir Bob Charles, who was New Zealand’s first major winner and the first left-handed player to win a major when he won the Open Championship in 1963, is now 90 and watched Fox’s fourth round in replay at a more congenial hour.
“I’m watching this in colour. In my day, it was all black and white,” Charles told The New Zealand Herald newspaper of the TV coverage. “I’m watching every hole that he’s playing. In my day, they only had about the last three or four holes.”
Charles praised Fox for the pace at which he plays the game, which goes against a modern tendency towards slow play. Fox hesitated for barely 30 seconds over the final putt that allowed him to join Charles, Michael Campbell and Lydia Ko as a major winner from New Zealand.