{"id":534252,"date":"2026-07-19T22:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/534252\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T22:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T22:41:08","slug":"my-hands-were-all-over-the-place-for-surreal-open-winning-putt-says-ryan-fox-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/534252\/","title":{"rendered":"My hands were all over the place for \u2018surreal\u2019 Open-winning putt, says Ryan Fox | The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Fox has said he had no \u00adsensation in his hands as he hit the winning putt in the 154th Open Cham\u00adpionship. Fox, who claimed his first major title<\/a>, became the first New Zealander since Bob Charles in 1963 to win the Open. He did so in dramatic style, with a birdie putt on the final hole sufficient\u00a0for a 68 and 10-under-par total which was enough to beat Cameron Young by one stroke.<\/p>\n

Fox was typically brisk in his approach to playing the 18th. Reflecting on the moment of victory, though, he explained the state of his emotions. \u201cYou can\u2019t feel your hands, I know that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus with the putter all day was, just take a really deep breath before I hit it and just try to hit a line and I did that on 18. I was shaking. I was just trying to get it up there near\u00a0the hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked pretty straight and thankfully it dived in that left edge. It\u2019s crazy. I don\u2019t really know what to\u00a0think. I don\u2019t know how I \u00admanaged\u00a0to keep the putter face square enough for that to go on line but I\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019s inward half of 34 included two birdies in the last three holes. \u201cI\u00a0said to my caddie through six or eight holes: \u2018I feel a lot better than I\u00a0thought I would feel right now,\u2019\u201d he\u00a0said. \u201cI\u00a0played really solid early. To\u00a0play that last hole how I did, I stood on the tee and said to my caddie: \u2018Dean, we\u2019re going to try to win this.\u2019 I hit two perfect shots. I\u2019m not sure\u00a0how I hit the putt. As I said, my hands were all over the place. I was just trying to get it towards the\u00a0hole\u00a0somewhere. It\u2019s surreal that it went in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox, the son of the All Black rugby legend Grant Fox, had not recorded a major top\u201110 finish before this and missed the cut in the Open of 2025. \u201cYou dream of this moment,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether I ever thought it was going to become a reality. Now it is and to have my name etched in the history of the game is pretty awesome. I think it\u2019s pretty awesome for New Zealand as well. It\u2019s going to be big down there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate all the support from down there at home. It\u2019s going to be a lot of people pretty tired Monday morning at work after staying up all night to watch. I\u2019m glad it was worthwhile for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Fox has said he had no \u00adsensation in his hands as he hit the winning putt in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-534252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}