Ryan Fox has delivered one of golf’s most improbable triumphs, claiming the British Open at Royal Birkdale at age 39 to complete a sporting dynasty that already boasts a Rugby World Cup winner and a New Zealand cricket captain. The third Kiwi man ever to win a major championship admitted he “would have killed” for this achievement when battling simply to survive as a golf professional, and he may still not be the best sportsman in his remarkable family.

Fox is the son of former All Black Grant Fox, who lifted the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, whilst his maternal grandfather Merv Wallace captained and coached the New Zealand cricket team. That sporting pedigree has shadowed him throughout his career in rugby-mad New Zealand, but Sunday’s Claret Jug triumph at Birkdale suggests the golfing Fox may have delivered the family’s greatest achievement yet.

“I don’t know if this tops their achievements, but it’s certainly right up there,” Fox told reporters after his shock breakthrough. “I guess there’s no pressure on my kids going forward now!”

Late bloomer rewrites career trajectory

The 39-year-old had never even cracked the top 10 of a major before this week, his Birkdale triumph bucking golf’s general pattern by succeeding spectacularly as a late bloomer in a sport increasingly dominated by precocious twentysomethings.

“I was a rookie on the DP World (European) Tour at 30. I was a rookie on the PGA Tour at 37 and now a major champion at 39. I’m definitely not following the trend at the moment,” Fox declared, his career arc defying conventional wisdom about athletic prime years.

“If you’d have given me my career up till yesterday, when I first turned pro I would have jumped at it. Now I probably would have killed people for it.”

Father’s caddie stint saved career

Fox revealed he came desperately close to abandoning professional golf entirely, crediting his All Black father’s intervention during a crisis of confidence on the Australian Tour for salvaging what eventually became a major championship career.

“My second year on the Aussie Tour, I was pretty close to giving it up. I think I had three events left in the season and I was not enjoying it,” Fox admitted. “I had just missed the cut at the Aussie PGA badly. My dad came over and caddied for me and he said to me, ‘why do you play this game?’ And I said, ‘well, it’s supposed to be fun’. But it wasn’t really very fun at the time. He goes, well, let’s just go out this week and try to have some fun.

“I think I finished fifth that week and that made enough to keep my card for the year. Took the pressure off the rest of the year and I came back the following year and played really, really well…I was very close to giving it up at that point.”

That fifth-place finish proved the turning point, the pressure valve release that allowed Fox to rediscover the joy that initially drew him to golf and eventually carried him to Birkdale glory 17 years later.

Kiwi major champions remain rare breed

Fox follows Bob Charles at the 1964 British Open and Michael Campbell at the 2005 US Open as the only male New Zealanders to win majors, an exclusive club that underscores just how rare this achievement remains for a nation of five million people.

New Zealand boasts a superstar of the women’s game in Lydia Ko, who has claimed three majors at just 29 years old, but male champions remain desperately scarce.

“I think we punch above our weight a little bit in New Zealand anyway,” said Fox. “I think this will be huge for New Zealand golf.”

From middle of the night viewer to champion

Simply earning the opportunity to tee off at the British Open once represented Fox’s ultimate ambition, the kid who set alarms for ungodly hours to watch coverage from halfway around the world never daring to dream he might one day lift the Claret Jug himself.

Now he will return it to St Andrews next year as defending champion, guaranteed a place in the Open Championship for at least 16 years whilst basking in the knowledge he is the Champion Golfer of the Year.

“I used to get up in the middle of the night to watch this tournament back home. It was always something that was there just to be able to play in it,” Fox reflected. “Now to be an Open champion, to be the champion golfer of the year, it’s unbelievable, surreal, crazy. I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to explain it to be honest.”