Ryan Fox birdies the 18th hole to win The Open 2026 by 1 shot over Cameron Young

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SOUTHPORT, England – Ryan Fox of New Zealand rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt at the 72nd hole to win the 154th Open Championship by one stroke over Cam Young on Sunday.

Fox, 39, the son of a legendary All-Blacks rugby player, shot 2-under 68 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club to claim his first major championship trophy and the title of Champion Golfer of the Year.

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Fox tied the course record and equaled the lowest 18-hole score in men's major championship history, an 8-under 62 on Saturday, to climb into contention. On Sunday, he fell down to 7-under with a bogey at No. 11 but he battled back with four birdies in his final six holes down the closing stretch. He topped it off with a tee shot into the fairway at the difficult 18th and knocked an 8-iron on for the winning putt.

Young rallied from seven strokes back at the start of the day to shoot 6-under 64 and was the clubhouse leader as competitor after competitor fell by the wayside down the stretch except for one.

Young, who won the Players Championship in March, was seeking his first major championship title too, and joined the trophy hunt after a blistering start of three birdies in a row and a front-nine 29.

Sam Burns, the 54-hole leader, made three straight bogeys on the front nine starting at the fourth and never regained the lead. He birdied the second, the only player to reach 11 under, but failed to make another birdie. He settled for third. Si Woo Kim made birdies at Nos. 5 and 6 to get to 10 under and held the lead at the turn until he made back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 11 and 12 and another at 16 and dropped to T-6.

Nearly 2 hours after he finished his round, Young returned to the practice-putting green to prepare for a possible playoff.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler made a valiant effort to retain the title for the first time since Padraig Harrington in 2008. He birdied 16 and 17 to climb within one but his birdie putt from off the green at 18 scooted past the hole and he made bogey for 67 and T-4 with Englishman Tommy Fleetwood.

Bryson DeChambeau, who was penalized two strokes on Friday, never got untracked and closed in 2-over 72 and finished T-14. He declined to speak to the media for the fourth straight day.

Young reached 10 under for the championship with his seventh birdie of the day at the par-5 17th to reach 10 under. He gambled at 18 with driver off the tee at the hardest hole on the course and found a pot bunker.   

“Driver is aggressive there, but the only option to take out all the bunkers is to leave yourself like 265 in, which didn't feel that smart to me either. I just figured go ahead and try to hit a good one,” he said.

He opened the face on a 6-iron and caught the face of the bunker, the ball ricocheting sideways. 

“I felt like I had a chance to get the second one on the green,” Young explained. “It just felt worth the risk.”

His third trickled into a greenside pot bunker, where he nearly holed out but salvaged a bogey and 64.   

Fox, who had never had a top-15 in 29 appearances in the majors, missed from 10 feet for birdie at 17. But he made the one that mattered at 18 and became the third Kiwi to win a major, joining Bob Charles and Michael Campbell.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ryan Fox birdies the 18th hole to win The Open 2026 by 1 shot over Cameron Young

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