The birdie putt on Royal Birkdale’s 18th green is already history. What’s happened since is its own story.
Ryan Fox has been in celebration mode since claiming the Claret Jug, pouring a Bordeaux into the trophy before having to empty it repeatedly for interviews and photos, then refilling it again. Sleep wasn’t part of the plan. After finishing celebrations around 3am with a 4.15am pickup booked for Manchester Airport, Fox decided against going to bed altogether, opting to pull an all-nighter and chase sleep on the flight home instead — a plan that didn’t entirely work out.
Speaking to New Zealand radio, Fox admitted he’d “been in better shape, to be honest, but it’s all worth it,” explaining that every time he tried to rest, his head kept spinning — not from the celebrations, but from processing what had actually happened over the previous 24 hours.
The journey home produced its own moment of golf theatre. Social media captured Fox boarding a flight from Manchester to London with the trophy case, wrestling it into the overhead locker — seated, of all places, next to Cameron Young, the man he’d beaten by a single stroke.
Back on home soil, the reaction has been seismic. New Zealanders woke to news of their new major champion, with the putt landing at roughly 5:30am local time. Fox now sits among an elite group as just the fourth Kiwi to win a golf major.
As for what’s next, Fox has already made it back to his home base in Florida, where he’s planning to take time off to recuperate before returning to competitive golf. The Claret Jug, meanwhile, is presumably still catching its breath, too — having gone from Southport interview rooms to an overhead bin somewhere over the Atlantic in under a day.
