Ryan Fox
The blokest of all blokes—and now Open Champion
Ryan Fox is the Champion Golfer of the Year, winning the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale by a single shot. And he did it without hesitation—there’s no quicker player in world golf.
His Twitter bio matches his unassuming profile: Pro golfer, Olympian, and proud New Zealander. 12K followers, a manageable number. He likely DMs with all of them.
Privilege delivers sparingly in professional sport. The good ones prefer to work for their supper. Fox has a swing you’d see at the local muni—he doesn’t care one bit, moving his ball forward however he can. Golfers like Ryan Fox are a critically endangered species. Long may they thrive.
He earned his European Tour card at 30 and his PGA Tour card at 37. He also nearly quit two seasons into his time on the Australian tour. Everything about him is iconoclastic.
“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.”
The sharpest description I heard over the weekend:
“He’s got that suburban dad look who works out in the garage over the gym.” “The blokest of all blokes.”
Many stories presented on a perfect Sunday in West Lancashire:
Tommy Fleetwood flirting with the improbable—surely the golf gods will grant him an Open before he retires to the Scarisbrick Hotel. Bryson DeChambeau playing both pantomime villain and circus clown. Sam Burns—only there because his daughter arrived two weeks early. Kim Si Woo playing like he doesn’t give a crap, but he does. And Cameron Young, so close again—he remains a favourite.
And then there’s the Fox family:
Merv Wallace — maternal grandfather, New Zealand cricketer and Test captain.
Grant Fox — dad, All Blacks legend, won the first Rugby World Cup.
And now, Ryan Fox — Open Champion.
Ryan Fox earned it. Every yard of it.
Nick
