Ryan Fox with the Claret Jug
RICHARD HEATHCOTE, GETTY IMAGES
Following his dramatic triumph in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale two Sundays ago, Ryan Fox returned home to New Zealand, arriving last Friday with his wife, Anneke, their two children and the Claret Jug.
Among those greeting him at the Auckland airport was his father, Grant Fox, the former rugby great for New Zealand’s All Blacks national squad, the Associated Press reported. Not long after his return, the media spotted the 39-year-old champion at a local bakery enjoying his favorite steak, bacon jam and cheese pie, the report said.
After clinching his first major title with a 12-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole, Fox was looking forward to playing casual golf “with some mates,” he said. He also revealed that two-time PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas “reached out and said, remember all the little things because they’re great to draw back on when you really need it.” READ MORE
“There’s moments of adversity in everybody’s life, and I was passionate about what I believed and thought was right. For me, it’s now in a place that it is what it is, and you keep moving through it. You keep moving past it.”
Bryson DeChambeau, speaking last Thursday about his experience at the previous week’s Open Championship, where he disputed a two-stroke penalty officials assessed him for improving the area of his intended backswing
Andrew Redington, Getty Images
As part of their existing strategic alliance, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour will partner with the Asian Tour to help provide commercial and playing opportunities while establishing advancement pathways for leading Asian Tour members starting next season, the tours announced last Tuesday. The partnership will run through at least 2029, according to the announcement.
Top-performing players from the Asian Tour will earn access to the DP World Tour or its second-tier HotelPlanner Tour, with final details to be announced in the fall. The DP World Tour will also return to co-sanctioning select tournaments with the Asian Tour beginning in 2027.
The partnership means the Asian Tour will no longer be aligned with LIV Golf, for which it had served as a second-tier feeder circuit since the league’s 2022 launch. Moreover, the alliance will prevent LIV Golf from offering the Asian Tour’s national opens as part of a tournament package as it seeks new investors to bankroll the league beyond this season, Golf Digest reported, citing multiple sources who confirmed that those tournaments have been part of the league’s proposals. READ MORE
LIV Golf’s season-ending team championship in Michigan is “highly unlikely” to take place, two-time major winner Martin Kaymer told Today’s Golfer in a report published last Wednesday.
Kaymer, the captain of LIV’s Cleeks GC team, attended a captains’ meeting last Tuesday ahead of the LIV Golf UK tournament at which league CEO Scott O’Neil assured players that there are investors interested in saving the league following the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund’s decision to withdraw funding after this season, the report said.
“We were hoping for a bit more information,” Kaymer told the website. “I mean, we got the information, but we were more looking for decisions or what was happening next year. And unfortunately, even Scott, he can’t tell us because he doesn’t know. It depends so much on the investors. Hopefully, I think there’s a lot of interest and it’s looking good.”
A decision regarding the Michigan tournament, which is slated for Aug. 27-30, is expected to be made Tuesday, the report added. There had been no tournament infrastructure buildout at The Cardinal at Saint John’s Resort, the tournament site, as of last Wednesday night, The Detroit News reported last Thursday. READ MORE
Tap-Ins
Trevor Immelman will serve as an assistant to International team captain Geoff Ogilvy for the 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club in September, Ogilvy announced last Wednesday. Immelman captained the 2022 International team at Quail Hollow. READ MORE
The LPGA will debut a new tournament in 2027, the Nanea Cup, that will feature a field of 95 professionals competing concurrently with 25 collegiate players from Stanford, Texas, Arkansas, Texas A&M and UCLA, it announced Tuesday. The tournament will be played March 11-14 on the David McLay Kidd-designed layout at Nanea Golf Club on Hawaii’s Big Island. READ MORE
The Open Championship’s final-round telecast on NBC averaged 4.3 million viewers, a 6 percent increase over last year’s Sunday broadcast. The final-round audience peaked at 6.1 million viewers between 1:15 and 1:30 p.m. amid Ryan Fox’s rally to win. All four majors had final-round viewership increases this year, Front Office Sports observed, with the PGA Championship posting a 21 percent jump, the Masters 13 percent and the U.S. Open 2 percent. READ MORE
A Canadian technology provider has sued LIV Golf for more than $1 million for outstanding unpaid invoices and lost revenue, according to multiple reports. Mobii Systems Group Ltd., which supplied the league’s “Any Shot, Any Time” broadcast technology that is no longer being utilized, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Miami on Friday, according to the reports. READ MORE
Michael F. Roman, the former chairman and CEO of consumer and industrial products conglomerate 3M, was elected as an independent director to the PGA Tour Policy Board, the tour announced. READ MORE
Compiled by Mike Cullity
