If you’re of the Ricky Bobby school of thought (if you’re not first, you’re last) you could come away from Royal Birkdale seeing just one winner and 155 losers.
But we’re slightly more charitable than that — so let’s review a smattering of winners, losers and in-betweeners from what was (gulp) the final men’s major of the year.
WINNER: Ryan Fox’s commitment
Open champ Ryan Fox said in his post-win presser that he “sees things fast.” He plays that way, too: Quick, relentless, committed. As he said it:
“It’s not that difficult to pick a shot and pick a club.”
Fox would have been something of an unexpected winner entering the week, but with the benefit of hindsight he’s the perfect fit: A tough international competitor with notable wins on links courses (the 2022 Dunhill Links) and English courses (the 2025 BMW PGA) and in big national opens (the 2025 RBC Canadian Open) and a life of worldwide golf. In a week defined by rulings, controversies and golf’s gray areas, there was something refreshing about Fox’s style — and his acceptance — as he handled everything the course gave him down the stretch.
The way Ryan Fox handled that brutal bunker break on 15 — no real reaction, wasted no time chopping out backwards, got up and down for bogey — set him up for that finish. Fun guy to watch play golf. Awesome attitude. Relentless game. Plays fast and committed. Hit some incredible… pic.twitter.com/g8t5QV51Q7
There was a stark contrast between what happened when Fox found the pot bunker just right of the 18th fairway on Saturday evening — a miraculous escape with a launched 8-iron to the front of the green — versus Cameron Young, who tried to pull off something similar on Sunday afternoon but banked it off the side wall instead and did well to escape with bogey. (He made bogey from a fairway bunker on Saturday, too.) Every shot counts the same, but Fox’s 18th-hole play was a glaring separator.
“It’s a really difficult golf hole,” Young said post-round, correctly.
“I mean, I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them. I didn’t feel anything for the putt; everything was shaking that much. I was just happy to hit it somewhat near the hole, and to see it go in was incredible,” Fox said post-win.
WINNER: Cameron Young’s Sunday
With that said, Cameron Young’s Sunday charge was remarkable, it was a shot of life for the tournament and it was very nearly enough to win him his first major. His 64 was low round of the day by two and showed off an elite, well-rounded game; he gained strokes in all areas of his game and reminded us why he’s joined the game’s upper echelon. Young wraps up his major championship season with two podium finishes, which go well with his Players Championship. Young will be heartbroken. He should be proud, too.
“I was really just proud of the way I put it together, the way I did it more than the round itself,” Young said post-round. “[Saturday] was tough. It’s one of those nights where you’re kind of — I don’t want to say down, it’s still just kind of a bad day at work, and I’m fortunate to have a cool job, but yeah, it’s a frustrating night.
“To come out, and I feel like I was really clear-minded all day, I had a really clear intention what I was going to do. Yeah, just executed that really, really well, and it happened to add up to 64. It could have been 68; it could have been 60. I just played really well.”
LOSERS: The Best Golfers Without Majors
If you were making a list heading into the week of the best golfers without a major you wouldn’t have gotten far before you’d listed Cameron Young, Sam Burns and Tommy Fleetwood. Then those guys finished second, third and tied for fourth, reminding us why they’re at the top of that list but also why it’s so hard to get off that list.
Burns will have especially mixed emotions. To some extent, anything that happened this week was going to be a bonus — he didn’t even expect to play! But then he built a two-shot lead heading to Sunday’s final round, revving up expectations and putting a target on his back. Now he’s the owner of another close miss. His T7-T26-2-3 showing at this year’s majors is up there with anyone.
He was classy in congratulations on the 18th green, as his playing partner accomplished what he’d dreamt of. And he kept things matter-of-fact post-round.
“I played a lot of great golf this week. Unfortunately didn’t have my best stuff today. Got off to a bad start, made a couple of mistakes early,” he said. “Ryan played amazing. He’s a well-earned champion. Hat’s off to him. He did what he needed to do down the stretch. Ultimately just came up a couple short today.”
It was hard not to get emotional watching Tommy Fleetwood — the prince of Southport, who wielded layers of pressure all week long — roll in one of the only birdies of the day at No. 18 to a massive roar from the jam-packed grandstands. Fleetwood’s chances peaked when he reached three under par for the round through eight holes. They disappeared when he bogeyed 9-10-11. But there was plenty to be said for his resilience down the stretch. As always, his post-round remarks were admirable, even if they came with a heavy dose of heartbreak.
“Of course, there’s only one person that gets to win it, and like my dream of winning the Open will carry on and I’ll continue to chase it,” he said. “But stuff like that, walking down 18 and the atmosphere out there, that was beyond stuff that I’ve dreamt of. That was just stuff that I never imagined. The crowds were amazing, and they made it the most special week ever for me, and I can’t thank them enough.”
It feels like a very, very long time ago that Si Woo Kim held the outright lead in this golf tournament, but at one point on Sunday afternoon he was the heavy favorite to close out his first major championship. What followed was a strange limp to the finish filled with misfires off the tee and aggressive decisions that didn’t quite pay off. Kim finished T6, his 10th top-10 of the season and the best result of his major career. But his four-over 40 on the way in will sting.
Did you watch Casey Jarvis play golf this week? Did you see him hit shots? Were you aware he finished in a share of sixth place? Because on Sunday he birdied No. 18 to post four-under 66 and six under for the tournament. On a day when leaders were leaking bogeys down the stretch, that left him T6 with Kim and Lucas Herbert — an incredible result for a young player with MC-MC-T65 as his career major record before this week.
He didn’t take the moment for granted.
“All the guys at the top of the leaderboard were my role models growing up with Scottie, Rory and a few other guys. I’ve been looking up to them, seeing how their game is, and to see my name on the leaderboard amongst the best players in the world, it truly means the world to me.”
LOSER: Bryson DeChambeau’s Sunday
Nobody had a stranger week than Bryson DeChambeau. His Friday triple-bogey stole more headlines than the rest of the tournament combined. His Sunday triple-bogey featured a shocking lost golf ball and officially eliminated him from contention. He played his final seven holes in two under to finish T14, which ultimately marked an anticlimactic close to a turbulent major season for DeChambeau.
WINNER: Xander Schauffele’s T18
I do not think Xander Schauffele himself will grade this as a “win” and I’m not saying that, like, Schauffele had a better week than DeChambeau. But this is a moment of appreciation for the never-give-up nature of Schauffele, who didn’t have his best stuff this week but played his way from the edge of the cut line inside the top 20, as he always seems to do. In the last 19 majors, Schauffele has finished T18 or better in 18 of those — and the lone outlier was a T28. It’s worth appreciating that run of excellence.
LOSER: Rory McIlroy’s momentum
Rory McIlroy had an opposite finish to Schauffele. He played well out of the gate on Sunday, getting to two under for his round (and four under for the tournament) through 10 holes — but he shot three over par the rest of the way to fade to T40, adding a disappointing final sentence to a major championship season that began with a Masters victory.
“I just felt like any time I got a little bit of momentum out there, I seemed to make a bogey,” he said. “Yeah, just one of those weeks I couldn’t get it going.”
I’m excited for McIlroy’s next chapter, for his fall international tour, for his role in what’s next in the golf world. But as he wrapped things up on Sunday he sounded slightly melancholy.
“This season feels very similar to last season. Obviously won the first major of the year, fell off a little bit after that, but still any time you win a major in a year, you have to be pleased about that.”
WINNER: Firm, fast conditions
It’s just more fun when the ball lands and you don’t know quite where it’s going to end up. Links golf rules.
LOSER: The Rules of Golf
DeChambeau’s week was overshadowed by his controversial brush with, well, brush on Friday evening. Scottie Scheffler’s rollercoaster charge on Sunday included plenty of discussion on the strangeness around his lost-ball-slash-free-drop en route to birdie on the 71st hole. This seems to be the natural way of the world, where our next-day discussions of NFL games revolve around pass interference calls and our NBA game reviews are a lot of block-vs.-charge and where a major star of this World Cup has been VAR processes. It’s definitely not boring. Sometimes it’s fun. But I don’t want it to engulf everything else.
LOSER: Lousy finishers
Jon Rahm started and finished his Sunday round with double bogeys; there’s a world where he could have challenged for the win, as he did on Sunday at the PGA, but instead his four-over 74 left him even par and T46. Justin Thomas had a rough finish, too, making six Sunday bogeys plus a double en route to 76 and T65, turning a solid week sour. The ascendant Alex Fitzpatrick was well positioned for a reasonably high finish, too, before his putter abandoned him and a Sunday 77 plummeted him down to T71.
WINNERS: Sunday chargers
They say it’s not how you start but how you finish. That’s good news for Young, of course, and for Jarvis. They’re not the only pros who will leave feeling good about their Sunday moves, though: A handful of others never meaningfully contended for the win but moved way up with low rounds nonetheless. I’m looking at Adam Scott, whose 66 jumped him 29 places to T9, his highest major finish since 2019. I’m looking at Russell Henley, who actually bogeyed two of his last three but still shot 66 to finish T9, his fourth top 10 in his last six major starts. Corey Conners (67), Chris Gotterup (67) and Rickie Fowler (66) charged into the top 20. That’ll feel good for the nine long months before next year’s Masters.
Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he’s the author of 18 in America, which details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living from his car and playing a round of golf in every state.
