31 Jul 154th Open Championship

The 154th Open Championship saw Royal Birkdale add its 11th staging of the Championship to an already storied roll of honour, with more than 300,000 spectators making their way through the gates across the week.

New Zealander Ryan Fox produced one of the great closing stretches in Open history to claim the Claret Jug. Starting the back nine well adrift of the pace, Fox rattled off four birdies in his last six holes, absorbing an unlucky bogey at the par-3 15th along the way, before rolling in a birdie putt from just inside twelve feet on the 72nd hole to seal victory in front of a packed grandstand on the 18th. His closing round of 68 saw him finish on 10 under par, one shot clear of Cameron Young, with Sam Burns third and Scottie Scheffler and local favourite Tommy Fleetwood sharing fourth. At 39, and having arrived ranked 56th in the world, Fox’s win was his first major title and only the third time a golfer from New Zealand has been crowned Champion Golfer of the Year.

Royal Birkdale also played host to a piece of Open history before a shot had been struck. As part of a series of enhancements for 2026, the Championship introduced its first-ever Last-Chance Qualifier, staged over the links on the Monday of Championship week. Twelve players competed for the very last spot in the 156-man field, with Englishman Joe Dean holing out for par on the 18th, his fiancée on the bag, to seal a dramatic one-shot victory and earn his place at The 154th Open.

The following afternoon, the inaugural Heroes Classic brought defending champion Scottie Scheffler to Royal Birkdale as a team captain alongside Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth, Padraig Harrington, Tommy Fleetwood, Miyu Yamashita, Paula Martin Sampedro, Bryan Habana and Brendan Lawler, entertaining packed crowds in a fitting start to Championship week.

Warm, dry weather across the week made for some of the great scoring conditions Royal Birkdale has offered in recent Opens, and the Club is proud to have once again provided the stage for a Champion Golfer to write his name into Open history.