Open Championship

Ryan Fox Wins the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale

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The First New Zealander to Lift the Claret Jug Since Bob Charles in 1963.

Victorious Ryan Fox holds the Claret Jug aloft

Ryan Fox won the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale on Sunday, birdieing four of his last six holes to finish at ten under par and edge Cameron Young by a single stroke. It is Fox’s first major title at thirty-nine, and it makes him only the third New Zealander in history to win the Claret Jug — the first since Bob Charles in 1963. Sam Burns, who had led since Friday, closed with a two-over 72 to finish third. Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood tied for fourth.

A Brutal Cut Set the Tone

Packed Stands at the 18th, where many watched their favourites miss the cut

Royal Birkdale’s firm fairways and pot bunkers made their intentions clear early. The cut line settled at one-over 141, and it caught two of the season’s form players. Matt Fitzpatrick, in contention for PGA TOUR Player of the Year, opened 72-72 and missed his first major cut since the 2024 PGA Championship. Wyndham Clark, the reigning U.S. Open champion, ballooned to seven-over after eight holes of his second round before a late eagle-birdie-birdie surge softened the damage — not enough to survive the weekend. Royal Birkdale does not care about reputation. It only cares about ball-striking.

Burns and Fox Rewrote the Record Books

Sam Burns set a course record to go into Sunday leading by 2

The weekend belonged to two players moving in opposite directions on the leaderboard. Sam Burns’s (pictured above) back-to-back 62-65 set a new record for the lowest 36-hole score in major championship history and put him two clear heading into Sunday. Ryan Fox matched that third-round 62 himself, closing the gap and setting up a final round that neither man’s card could have predicted. Lucas Herbert added his own piece of history along the way, matching a nine-hole scoring record during the tournament — a reminder of just how scoreable Birkdale played once the wind finally eased.

The Birdie That Won It

Sam Burns, joy of the winning putt

Fox’s final round was quiet until it wasn’t. Four birdies across his last six holes turned a share of the lead into a genuine chance, and on the 72nd hole he had a decision to make: play safe for a likely play-off, or go after the pin. He told his caddie they were going to “take it on.” An eleven-foot putt found the middle of the cup. Cameron Young, playing in the group ahead, closed with a bogey that left him a stroke short. Fox called the two shots into the final green “probably the two best of my life” — a fair claim, given what they were worth.

A Long Wait, Finally Over

Fox has spent the better part of a decade as one of the most respected ball-strikers on either the DP World Tour or the PGA TOUR without a major to his name, including a runner-up finish at the 2024 U.S. Open that left him agonisingly short. The Claret Jug carries a winner’s share reported at $3.2 million from a $17.5 million purse, but for a player who has built his career on consistency rather than headlines, the number matters less than the name now attached to the trophy. New Zealand golf has waited sixty-three years for a moment like this. Fox delivered it in front of a crowd that had adopted him as their own by Sunday afternoon.

Where the Season Goes From Here

Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood’s tie for fourth keeps both inside the conversation as the majors season winds down. Fleetwood, still chasing a maiden major of his own, will point to Birkdale as further evidence that the breakthrough is close rather than distant. Scheffler, already the game’s dominant figure, adds another top finish to a résumé that hardly needs one. Sam Burns leaves Birkdale with a share of record-book history even without the trophy, and a 54-hole lead he will want back sooner rather than later.

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For golfers inspired to test their own ball-striking against the same firm-and-fast conditions that decided this Open, the Algarve’s coastline offers a similar examination without the risk of a rain delay. Palmares, set along the cliffs above Meia Praia beach, plays as firm and demanding as anything Royal Birkdale served up this week.

Browse our Algarve golf holidays and see what the fairways have in store.


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Europe’s Open: Five Names Worth Backing at Royal Birkdale

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Two majors down. One to go. And it happens to be the most European one.

Royal Birkdale Golf Course Southport

The 2026 major season has been, by any reasonable measure, a European one. Rory McIlroy defended his Masters title at Augusta in April — the fourth player in history to win back-to-back Green Jackets. Aaron Rai won the PGA Championship in May, becoming the first English-born player to claim a major since 1919. Two of the three majors played so far this year have gone to Europe. The fourth, the oldest and the most naturally European of them all, arrives at Royal Birkdale on 16 July. Here are the five names worth backing.

Tommy Fleetwood — The Hometown Favourite

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

If there is a script written for this Open, it ends with Fleetwood’s name on the trophy. He grew up in Southport. He knows every gust off the Irish Sea, every quirk of that coastline — and, one suspects, every pub on the high street. The gallery at Birkdale will carry him loudly, and for four days. He finished tied eleventh at Shinnecock Hills last weekend. His links record is exceptional. The only thing Fleetwood has never done is win a major. Birkdale in July, in front of a crowd entirely on his side, feels like the moment that changes.

Aaron Rai — The Man With Momentum

Aaron Rai with the Wanamaker Trophy, Aronimink, May 2026

Three weeks ago, Rai won the PGA Championship at Aronimink. He did it without any of the drama that typically surrounds major week — calmly, methodically, with the composure of someone who had done it before. He hadn’t. He was also tied eleventh at Shinnecock Hills last weekend. The form is there. The belief, clearly, is there. Links golf will suit him. This is a player who could win two majors in a calendar year, and if that thought has not yet crossed his mind, it will have crossed his caddie’s.

Rory McIlroy — The Links Specialist

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

McIlroy won The Open at Royal Liverpool in 2014. He has six major titles and back-to-back Masters victories. His Shinnecock weekend was painful — a promising start that unravelled over two difficult back nines — but he has already confirmed the next two weeks will be spent playing links golf at home. The Scottish Open follows on 9 July, four days before Birkdale. There is a reason McIlroy talks about The Open the way other players talk about Augusta. The links game is the one he trusts most. He is not the favourite. He is, however, dangerous.

Shane Lowry — The Experience Card

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

Lowry won at Royal Portrush in 2019 in conditions that resembled a weather event more than a golf tournament. He won anyway. He is the sort of player who gets sharper when the wind gets up and the occasion gets heavy. Royal Birkdale in July can be both. Lowry will not feature prominently in the early conversations about this Open. That is almost certainly how he would prefer it.

Robert MacIntyre — The One Worth Watching

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

The young Scotsman plays links golf as though he was born to it — which, on the west coast of Scotland, he essentially was. MacIntyre has been building quietly toward a major for two years. The ingredients are there: the game, the temperament, the pedigree. Birkdale, with the right wind and the right week, might be where the building finally stops.

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The 154th Open Championship begins on 16 July. If it has you thinking about golf in rather more agreeable temperatures, the Algarve’s coastal courses offer firm fairways and Atlantic winds year-round — the next best thing to a week on the Lancashire coast. Browse our Algarve golf holidays and start planning.


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Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open

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Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open

Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open

Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open: The 147th Open Championship has already started and continues until Sunday with a record of almost 10 million euros in prize-money, with the prospect of the Carnoustie Golf Links present itself for the first time in more benign conditions that may allow a new record 72 hole course record for the champion.

Trying to name a favorite is a task similar to discussing the sex of the angels. As former world No. 1 Rory McIlroy said, “More than half of the 156 field has a realistic chance of winning the tournament.”

Given the calendar change that the PGA Tour is preparing for 2019, this will be the last year that the popularly known British Open will be the penultimate Major. Next year it will be the last

In 2018, the Majors champions are two Americans: Patrick Reed at The Masters and Brooks Koepka at the US Open, an important detail in a Ryder Cup year.

And no one will be surprised if the British Open winner will also be an Americano n Sunday, given that eight of the top 20 in the world ranking come from this country and seven of them are Major Champions. The only exception being Rickie Fowler, the 29 year old who has already been runner-up in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments, including the British in 2014!

Jordan Spieth (defending champion), Dustin Johnson (world No. 1), Justin Thomas (PGA Championship champion), Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka, and the left-handers Bubba Watson (two-time Masters champion) and Phil Mickelson (winner of 5 Majors, including the British in 2013) are among the many candidates, although Watson has never reached a top-20 in the oldest tournament in the World.

Even Tiger Woods believes that at 42 he can still dream of holding the Claret Jug for the fourth time in his career and winning his 15th Major ten years after 14th: “Distance becomes a moot point on a links-style course. But creativity plays such an important role. You don’t have to be young to play on a links style golf course. Look what Tom Watson did at Turnberry at 59. So it’s possible. Greg Norman was there at Birkdale in 2008 at I think about 54-ish, somewhere around there 53, 54. It certainly can be done.”

Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open - trophy

147th Open – Trophy

“The ball rolls a lot in the links and the distance is not that important anymore,” Woods said, also knowing that US captain, Jim Furyk, said he still has a chance to get e pick to play the Ryder Cup in September if he has a good performance this week.

“For me, there are about five thousand different ways to play these holes,” said Patrick Reed, agreeing with Woods that although the Angus Links course is the longest of all the 10 Opens course, the driving distance will not be the most important aspect.

Many Europeans can dream about winning at Carnoustie, including the last two to British Open European champions, the Swedish Henrik Stenson in 2016 and the Irishman Rory McIlroy in 2014, when he shut-up all of those who predicted that he would never be able to triumph on a links, because of his high ball flight.

But perhaps the best European in recent weeks has been the silent and circumspect Italian Francesco Molinari, this year’s champion on the PGA Tour (Quicken Loans National) and on the European Tour (BMW PGA Championship).

As The Open Championship began on Thursday, much of the attention soon fell on Tiger Woods, playing with a neck pain. But in the days leading up to the start of the event organized by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the main focus was on the course.

Carnoustie is legendary. There are historical records of the local parish of golf in 1560! A course already existed in 1834 and it is certain that in 1867 Old Tom Morris designed and transformed an original 10-hole course in a 18 hole one. In 1926 it was renovated by James Braid, a five-time British Open champion.

In 1931 the course first received The Open Championship and since then is one of the 10 courses hosting the oldest and most prestigious tournament in the World.

Only great champions triumphed in Carnoustie: Scotsman Tommy Armor in 1931, Englishman Henry Cotton in 1937, American Ben Hogan in 1953, South African Gary Player in 1968, American Tom Watson in 1975, Scotsman Paul Lawrie in 1999 and the Irishman Padraig Harrington in 2007.

Carnoustie Golf Links the legendary course of the 147th Open - Golf Course

Carnoustie Golf Links

Carnoustie has long been considered one of the most difficult tests in the history of the Majors, but the last two editions of the British Open there were epic and turned the course into an authentic legend.

In 1999 the course setup was so violent that the average stroke rate per round was 76.8, the cut was at 12 over Par, and Lawrie won at +6. Simply brutal.

On top of that, the ending was magical. Frenchman Jean van de Velde lost 3 shots in last hole, sending the ball to the famous water hazard baptized Barry Burn, missing the chance to become a Major champion. He then lost the play-off with Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard, and Lawrie still is the last Scot to triumph in Carnoustie.

Former world n.1 David Duval said that “who was there in 1999 can not forget it. Often they ask me the best course I’ve played and I do not know the answer, but I can point out the hardest I’ve played.”

The hardness of the course made gain it the nickname “Car-nasty” and in 2007 Padraig Harrington sent the ball twice to Barry Burn in the last hole of the last round.

It was necessary to go to another play-off to decide the title and the ghost of van de Velde returned to Carnoustie, but Paddy recovered and defeated Sergio Garcia.

Interestingly, Harrington won with 7 under Par, the second best ever score at a British Open on the Angus Links course, only surpassed by Watson’s -9 in 1975 when the course was still a Par-72 and not a Par-71 like nowadays.

It was also in 2007 that Steve Stricker and Richard Green made rounds of 64 shots, the best of The Open in this course, although the record belongs to Tommy Fleetwood’s 63rd card at Alfred Dunhill Links Championship last year, a tournament where the setup is nicer.

«Carnoustie course record holder sounds great, doesn’t it? When we look at all the big players that have played here, whether in the Open or in this tournament, it is very special to have the lowest round ever. I’m very proud, “said Tommy at the time.

Although the scores were much better at this 2007 Open than in the one of 1999, the toughness of that Harrington’s finale helped to reinforce the reputation of the 7402 yards course.

That is why most players do not believe the predictions of some analysts that this year we will have for the first time a champion to overcome the two digits below Par.

The mini-drought that the United Kingdom has known in recent times, coupled with the unusual high temperatures in Scotland, have made the course even firmer and therefore faster, while the rough, although high, is thinner, less dense, more playable.

Only if the traditional strong winds show up, the players will have nightmares. But that was not what happend on the first round, with the surprising American Kevin Kisner, 33rd in the ranking world, taking the lead with 66 shots, 5 under Par.

Carnoustie’s fame is such that players prefer to expect the worst, as World No. 1 Dustin Johnson cautiously said: “It’s just a tough course. It’s still Carnoustie. “

Hugo Ribeiro / Tee Times Golf