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Chip off the old block, nerves of rock. Some 39 years after his father won the Rugby World Cup, Ryan Fox wrote another glorious chapter in a uniquely brilliant family story by winning The Open Championship on Sunday.
And how he did it, this Kiwi with the blood of an All Blacks legend. When push came to shove, on a day when four different men had hands on the Claret Jug, it was Ryan son of Grant who stepped forward and would not be beaten.
We should go straight to the moment of coronation before saying anything else. Because this 154th edition of golf’s oldest major went to the final putt of the final group on the final day.
By then, a little after 6.30pm on a breezy evening at these seaside links in Southport, Cameron Young had been killing time for more than two hours. For so long, his tally of nine under par appeared set to stand.
Even when Fox stood in the 18th fairway and flew an iron 172 yards through a crosswind to 11 feet, the smart money was on a play-off, because only five men out of 77 had birdied the last.
But the 78th man to try was Grant’s lad. And the thing about Grant is that he never missed – he was the fly-half with the metronomic boot and some traits don’t skip the generations. And so Fox pulled back that blade, brought it through, and after a small track from left to right the ball disappeared below ground.
Ryan Fox won The Open in dramatic fashion after he birdied the 18th hole on the final day
The New Zealander held his nerve under intense pressure to win his first ever major
Fox sank his putt on the 18th hole to trigger jubilant celebrations at Royal Birkdale in Southport
With two arms in the air, Fox was the Champion Golfer of Year.
‘Wow,’ he said in the immediate aftermath, having turned in a card for a 68 and a 10-under-par total. ‘I don't really know what to think at the moment.
‘I've got a lot of people to thank. First of all, my family, my wife and kids are in Florida at the moment. I spoke to my kids last night, and they said, “Bring back a trophy”. I think this is a pretty cool one to bring back for them.’
We can stick with the family theme a while longer, because it isn’t just Grant in the lineage – Fox’s maternal grandfather, Merv Wallace, also captained the New Zealand cricket team in the Fifties. With Fox the father to two daughters, one can only wonder what comes next.
But a word on the chasers in the here and now - Young was one behind after a 64, overnight leader Sam Burns was a spot further back with head of regrets, and they collectively stood ahead of a pair of challengers in Scottie Scheffler and a local lad named Tommy Fleetwood on seven under.
Had Fleetwood not bogeyed three in a row in the middle of his round, maybe this would have been his day. Maybe they would have closed the streets here for a year in celebration. But no one could begrudge a win for Fox, a 39-year-old who has walked the hard yards in this maddening game.
Fox became New Zealand’s second champion at The Open after Sir Bob Charles in 1963
The no-nonsense 39-year-old was speechless when reflecting on his triumph
After 14 years on the grind, he had already proven himself more than a familiar name with two PGA Tour wins and three on the European circuit, but he had never been higher than 23rd in the world. Arriving in Southport, he was ranked 56th and as recently as March underwent surgery to remove kidney stones. Men of a certain age can relate.
But then came this, which is to say an uplifting end to a thrilling day. Burns and Young can fight over who had the worst time of it, because Burns, runner up at the US Open last month, started two clear in his pairing with Fox and never turned up. All of the finesse and touch he used in building his lead vanished – he stepped on the fourth tee and went bogey-bogey-bogey and stayed at eight under for the rest of his day.
Young’s round was so very different. No one started better than this American nearly man, who started in 20th position and played the front nine in 29 strokes in the calmest conditions of the morning. For that matter, few did as well as him on the way in, either.
But standing on the 18th tee, at 10 under par, it went wrong. He drove into a pot bunker and then sought to attack the green from 180 yards short, only to thrash his shot into the face of the trap. Playing his third from the adjacent rough, Young’s third went into sand by the green and a bogey gave him an awful lot to think about on the two-hour wait for the later groups to finish.
Thankfully for Young, the wind was up. And when the wind is up on a baked links course, you have chaos and bogeys. Si Woo Kim avoided them for 10 holes and reached 10 under par, meaning he, Burns, Young and Fox all led at some point or other.
That he finished on six under told a story about the pressures of leading; that Bryson DeChambeau triple-bogeyed the 11th and capitulated to a 72 was possibly a different story about karma.
Had Scheffler birdied the 18th and reached nine under, who knows what kind of tremors that would have sent through the field. But instead he bogeyed and signed for a 67 and settled for seven under. Perhaps Fox wouldn’t have blinked anyway.
His round was steady in an even-par 34 for the front and a masterful clinic in rising at opportune moments on the back. Birdies at the 13th and 14th gave him his first taste of the lead and two more in the final three holes, when the pulse was thumping hardest, were the crowning moments of a champion.
Written in the stars, maybe, or more likely the DNA.