ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND | The Old Course had said goodbye to those towering Open Championship stands, the wind was having a field day and Rory McIlroy was looking every inch as if he were shaping to win the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Instead, the title went to New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, a sturdy 35-year-old who refused to let the elements blow him off track physically or mentally.
Four behind at the start of the day, Fox was soon sharing the lead with England’s Richard Mansell who, though never a winner on the DP World Tour, had five top-10 finishes to his name this year. Little by little, it became clear that Fox, a winner and three-time runner-up this year, had rather more going for him than the Englishman.
Firstly, he had a point to prove in that he had been left out of the Presidents Cup International team and, secondly, he wanted a win in honour of his former Dunhill amateur partner and great friend, the cricketer Shane Warne, who died earlier this year. Finally, he is blessed with an extraordinary sporting pedigree.
His father, Grant Fox, was a member of the New Zealand All Blacks team that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup of 1987, and his grandfather Merv Wallace was a Kiwi test match cricket captain.
The father was watching his son’s every shot through good weather and bad last week and, in his own quiet way, he was fairly radiating pride. He used to be nervous watching Ryan but not any more: “He tries his hardest,” Grant Fox told Sky Sports, “and you can’t ask for more than that.”
Fox, whose stroke of the day was the 50-foot putt for birdie he holed to regain a three-shot lead at the 15th, still had work to do after a costly tangle with the rough at the 17th had taken him back to 15-under.
The 14th hole dented McIlroy’s confidence. After making a sixth birdie in nine holes at the 13th, the Northern Irishman had the feeling that if he could make two more par-breakers – at the par-5 14th and the short par-4 18th – he would sign for his target score of 64 after pulling up eight shots behind Mansell on Saturday night.
As it transpired, he followed a grand drive at the 14th by catching sand with his second shot to miss out on the first of those birdies.
Simultaneously, Mansell was having bunker trouble back at the 11th as he found himself staring into the upper layers of the revetted face. He eventually played out sideways and fell two shots back of Fox.
Mansell had so much support over the day, but how many of his fans would have wondered what on earth he was doing fighting a flapping white hoodie as well as the wind? At least twice, he had to swish the hat section out of the way when he was about to take his putter back.
In fairness, it was a better look than, say, that fancy hat in which Greg Norman blew a six-shot lead to lose the 1996 Masters to Nick Faldo, but at least on the day, that hoodie did Mansell no favours. He finished in a share of seventh place.
England’s Callum Shinkwin birdied three of his final holes to finish co-runner-up with Sweden’s Alex Noren at 14-under. McIlroy birdied the 18th to share fourth place with France’s Antoine Rozner at 13-under. Shinkwin won the team event alongside America’s Alexander Acquavella.
Noren, playing beside Fox, heartily whacked a drive on the final hole that swerved with the right-to-left wind and took a fortuitous ricochet off the buildings to the right of the fairway and the fans before eventually settling on the edge of the green. Fox did the sensible thing in taking a 3-wood from the tee, which needed to be followed up with a well-struck approach. The result was pretty darned good in the circumstances.
An eagle by Noren could have forced a playoff, but he made birdie and, the Foxes, father and son, were soon sharing a well-deserved hug.
“This means everything to me,” Ryan Fox said.
Lewine Mair