“I’m definitely not following the trend at the moment. But if I can keep getting better a little bit every year, I’ll be pretty happy.
“I said it earlier; if you’d have given me my career up till yesterday when I first turned pro, I would have jumped at it. Now, I probably would have killed people for it,” he laughed.
His journey in the sport so far has been a rollercoaster, and he admitted it has been a career that he came close to not pursuing as he struggled in 2013.
“My second year on the Aussie Tour, I was pretty close to giving it up,” Fox said.
“I think I had three events left in the season, and I was not enjoying it. I played well enough in pro-ams to make a little money, but I had not played well on tour, and I was well outside keeping my card.
Former All Black Grant Fox caddies for son Ryan during an event in 2023. Photo / AFP
“I remember getting to the Aussie Masters at Royal Melbourne. It was the second-to-last event of the year. I had just missed the cut at the Aussie PGA badly. My dad came over and caddied for me, and he said to me, ‘why do you play this game?’ And I said, ‘well, it’s supposed to be fun’. But it wasn’t really very fun at the time. He goes, ‘well, let’s just go out this week and try to have some fun’.”
Fox played well that week, which took the pressure off, and he returned to have a strong year in 2014.
“I was very close to giving it up at that point.”
Fox went into the Open as no stranger to winning big tournaments. In 2022, he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at the famed St Andrews course in Scotland on the DP World Tour. He followed that up in 2023, winning the BMW PGA Championship – one of the pinnacle events on the DP World Tour with a field full of PGA Tour stars.
He won twice on the PGA Tour in 2025 – including the RBC Canadian Open in a playoff against American Sam Burns.
It seems good things happen for Fox when he and Burns play together, with the pair playing as the final group at Royal Birkdale in an unusually firm and fast Open. But while winning big tournaments is one thing, winning a major is a whole different category.
Add in the fashion in which Fox triumphed, it’s the sort of result a sportsperson can only hope to achieve in their career.
Trailing by eight shots after two rounds, Fox carded an eight-under-par 62 in his third round, with his 62 equalling the record for lowest individual round in a major championship.
That saw him sit second, two shots behind Burns, for the final round.
For the tournament to then come down to the final hole, with Fox needing a birdie to go ahead of clubhouse leader Cameron Young (-9) or a par to force a playoff, the Kiwi took on the challenge on the second-hardest hole of the course.
“I did say to my caddie, Dean, on the tee that we were going to take it on, that I was going to try to win the tournament, and I’d live with the consequences if I stuffed it up. To go out there and execute, that drive is not a very comfortable tee shot, obviously, and to hit it in the fairway and give myself a chance was huge,” Fox said.
Ryan Fox (right) celebrates with caddie Dean Smith (centre) and coach Marcus Wheelhouse after winning the Open Championship. Photo / AFP
“Then I landed on a good number. I think I had 160 metres to the hole. The breeze was a little down off the left. Obviously, everything is a bit jammed up there, so it was just a solid 9 [iron], and I hit it exactly where I wanted to hit it. I think I screamed to it, ‘Please be good’, in the air, and it was.
“To cap it off with a putt – everyone practices on the green, you’ve got to a putt to win a major championship, to win The Open. It’s not like that in real life. It’s not a very comfortable feeling. It’s certainly very enjoyable when you see it go in.”
To be competing in – and winning – one of golf’s biggest tournaments, Fox said it was beyond what he expected of himself when he set out on his professional career in 2012.
“I think the goal was just to get on a major tour, to be honest,” he reflected.
“You dream of being a major champion. You want to do it whether you think it’s a reality or not. I guess I probably didn’t until the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the major championships consistently until the last couple of years.”
For the win, Fox gets $5.5 million and he is an automatic entry into the Open through to the age of 60 and into the next five editions of The Masters, PGA Championship and US Open.
As the Open champion, his PGA Tour membership exemption also extends through 2031. He also gains lifetime entry into both the Senior PGA Championship and the Senior Open once he turns 50.
“It’s something you dream of. I used to get up in the middle of the night to watch this tournament back home.
“It was always something that was there just to be able to play in it, first up, and now to be an Open champion, to be the Champion Golfer of the Year, it’s unbelievable, surreal, crazy. I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to explain it, to be honest.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.