Fantastic Mr Fox
The saying goes that early birds catch the worms. At Royal Birkdale, the Fox caught the birdies.
Ryan Fox was the latest to cash in on a calm Merseyside morning as he joined Herbert and Burns in the 62 club at men’s majors, which has almost doubled in size over the past two days.
Fox was electric down the front nine, peeling off five birdies to hit the turn in 29. The New Zealander already has the joint-lowest back nine in Open history to his name, a 29 at Royal Portrush in 2019, and was just a stroke away from equalling the front-nine record too.
A bogey at 13 was his only blemish and could easily have derailed his round. But a bounce back birdie at 14 kicked the party back into life, and further birdies at 16 and 17 had the world back on ’61 watch’. One more and he would have made history.
Like Herbert and Burns on Friday, Fox’s 18th hole was dramatic.
He found the fairway bunker off the tee, but connected beautifully in the sand and scrambled his second shot onto the green. Almost 50 feet from the hole, the recovery mission was far from done, but Fox two-putted to save par and complete an extraordinary round.
“I feel really good,” he said.
“Being picky, I’d want a couple of drives back today maybe, but outside of that, I feel like I didn’t really miss a shot.
“I had a couple of great shots down the stretch, putted really nicely. But it feels like, when you’re out in the morning, when the wind’s down around here, there’s almost some pressure on to shoot a score.
“I would have taken 62 on a Saturday, that’s for sure.”