Ryan Fox returned home to New Zealand on Friday eager to celebrate his \u2060British Open triumph with family and friends, tuck into a favourite local pie and, if weather permits, sneak in a \u200cround of golf.<\/p>\n
The newly crowned champion cut short the post-major whirlwind to fly home, \u200csaying it was important to share the moment with those \u200cclosest to him after becoming the first New Zealander since Bob Charles \u200cin 1963 to win golf’s oldest major.<\/p>\n
“We made kind of \u200ca little bit of a last-minute decision to come home and celebrate with friends and family while it’s still fresh,” the 39-year-old told reporters at Auckland \u200cairport.<\/p>\n
“I’m definitely not fresh at the moment … but \u2060excited to be home.”<\/p>\n
After an \u200cemotional week, Fox found it a blessing to have a long-haul flight \u200bwith no Wi-Fi, allowing him to enjoy a glass of wine and some much-needed sleep before starting another busy schedule \u200bin New Zealand to catch up with people.<\/p>\n
“(I will) just spend some time with mum and dad. I’ll get the trophy out \u2060of the case and \u200bshow it off,” said the burly late bloomer.<\/p>\n
“And probably wouldn’t mind a pie either.”<\/p>\n
Fox has his sights set on a steak, bacon jam, and cheese pie from a favourite local bakery, a classic Kiwi \u200ccomfort food.<\/p>\n
The father-of-two said his young daughters were thrilled by the famous trophy and had already claimed it as their own.<\/p>\n
“They think it’s their trophy,” he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t quite had the heart to break it to them that it’s mine, and I’ve got to give it back at some point.”<\/p>\n
Fox’s win at Royal Birkdale on the Irish Sea coast sparked a wave of celebration across New Zealand, dominating television bulletins and sports coverage for days \u200cacross the country where the last men’s major winner was Michael \u200bCampbell at the 2005 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
He said he hoped to \u200cgrab a round of golf with some friends and maybe do a bit of fishing but thought New Zealand’s wet winter weather would probably put a dampener on both plans.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I’m going to get pulled in every direction possible \u2060over the next 10 days \u2060or so. But yeah, it’s \u200cdefinitely nice to be home,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Fox returned home to New Zealand on Friday eager to celebrate his \u2060British Open triumph with family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-826530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}