By Martyn Herman
SOUTHPORT, England, July 19 (Reuters) - Ryan Fox took the scenic route to major championship glory, but when the defining moment finally arrived, he wasted no time.
Twenty-two seconds after playing partner Sam Burns missed a birdie putt that could have forced a playoff, the New Zealander rolled in the winning putt on Royal Birkdale's 18th green on Sunday to complete a British Open triumph decades in the making.
The 12-footer sealed a dramatic one-shot victory for the 39-year-old, who
had never previously finished in the top 10 of a major and who was 52nd after two rounds of the Open.
Fox's journey to the Claret Jug has been anything but conventional.
"I was a rookie on the DP World Tour at 30. I was a rookie on the PGA Tour at 37 and now a major champion at 39," Fox told reporters with the Claret Jug perched in front of him.
"I'm definitely not following the trend at the moment. 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!"
What made Fox's breakthrough all the more remarkable in a game known for its often glacial pace was that it was achieved by a player who rarely lingers over anything.
From the moment American Burns missed, Fox needed barely half a minute to read, line up and hole the putt that made him the first New Zealand man to win the Open since Bob Charles in 1963.
That decisiveness has been part of him for as long as he can remember.
"I was always that way as a kid. I see things fast. I was the same when I was playing cricket growing up," said Fox, son of former All Black great Grant Fox.
NEVER METHODICAL AT ANYTHING
"I played almost every sport growing up. Tennis I wanted to hit the ball hard, and cricket I wanted to hit the ball hard. Everything just happened fast.
"I was never methodical at anything, to be honest, and it just carried over into golf. The less time I have to think about it, the less bad stuff can creep in there.
"If you tried to slow me down and make me do everything slowly, I think I'd be pretty useless, to be honest."
Fox earned his first two PGA Tour titles only last year, while the biggest victory of his European career remains the BMW PGA Championship he claimed at Wentworth in 2023.
There were times earlier in his career when even reaching the elite level of professional golf seemed a distant ambition.
"When I turned pro, the goal was just to get on a major tour, to be honest," he said.
Yet over the weekend at Birkdale, everything accelerated.
A men's major record-equalling 62 on Saturday vaulted him from the middle of the pack into the final pairing alongside overnight leader Burns.
On Sunday as bigger names wavered, he found four birdies over the final six holes of a roller-coaster closing round.
After failing to birdie the par-five 17th, Fox arrived at the 18th needing a birdie to overhaul American Cameron Young, whose brilliant 64 had left him as clubhouse leader for more than two hours.
Only four birdies had been recorded on the hole all day but Fox made mincemeat of it.
A towering drive found the fairway, a crisp nine-iron settled 12 feet from the hole and the winning putt disappeared into the centre of the cup.
"I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them. I didn't feel anything for the putt; everything was shaking that much," he said. "I was just happy to hit it somewhat near the hole, and to see it go in was incredible."
Fox comes from one of New Zealand's most distinguished sporting families. His father was a key member of the All Blacks side that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, while grandfather Merv Wallace captained the national cricket team.
"I had no pressure on me to follow in any of their footsteps," Fox said. "I was lucky enough to carve my own path."
That path led through the rolling dunes alongside the Irish Sea coast to golfing glory on Sunday.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
