The entirety of our Normal Sport newsletter collection this week is presented by Seed Golf. They are — like Foxy! — quietly and understatedly one of the best in the game. Check them out right here.

On Saturday morning in the third round of this year’s Open Championship, Ryan Fox took the first tee paired with Xander Schauffele at 5:30 a.m. eastern time.

He had just shot 72-68 to make the cut at E (+2 missed it), and Data Golf had him at 0.1 percent in terms of winning. Almost nobody in the golf world (not the sports world, the golf world) was paying attention.

He shot 29 on the front nine on Saturday. A 62-68 weekend later, and he’s drinking red wine from the Claret Jug on Sunday evening.

Golf is wild — we all know this, if you’re reading this newsletter, you know this — and the idea that you truly are one round away from something life-changing is actually often true in pro golf. Foxy was just playing out the string on Saturday morning. Another T32 at a major, take the check and on to the next week. Then? Magic. An Open!

This is part of the allure for me. Part of why it’s so compelling. Part of why making the cut — even sneaking inside the cut — is so meaningful. I’m quite sad that major championship golf has ended for this year as we begin the long, slow, arduous march to April. But I have fallen in love with not just stars and superstars winning major championships but Rais and Foxes as well.

Why? It’s because of the magic. It’s always lurking, and — this is the fun part — you never quite know where it’s going to come from.

Name drops today: Big Golfer, Scottie, Ludvig and of course Jalen Hurts.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Today’s newsletter is presented by Cobra. Apparently 3D printed irons were, ahem, a talking point at the Open Championship this week. You may have heard of the Fescue Manipulator who was using them.

And while I cannot speak for how good or not good those things performed, I can speak to Cobra’s 3DP irons and how they’re made.

Amazing stuff (and a very normal and not at all wild way to make golf clubs). Just like some of the players in the field this week (!), Cobra pushes the limits at all times. I appreciate that about them and truly enjoy playing their clubs (these are the King irons I currently use until I get into some 3Ds).

You can check out more on their 3DP irons right here.

And now, onto the news.

The Noisemaker

On Sunday, Scottie Scheffler birdied the first two holes at Royal Birkdale and legitimately looked as if he was going to scare something in the low 60s to win back to back Opens and his fifth major championship overall.

He eventually cooled off a bit but went to the 17th hole needing a birdie-birdie finish to tie clubhouse leader, Cam Young. He hit his tee shot and completely lost his mind. A week of more missed putts than Vijay in his prime culminated in a tectonic shift created by what he thought was a bad bounce, and he finally exploded.

Twitter tweet

This bounce left him a completely blind and impossible shot into the green.

When he hit this second shot on the 17th on Sunday, he unwittingly stepped further into the chaos because it resulted in a ball that … disappeared behind a hospitality tent but somehow — because of the “virtual certainty” (amazing phrase) of where it went into the brush behind the tent — resulted in TIO relief for the No. 1 player in the world.

Just like we’ve seen with VAR at the World Cup this year, Scottie’s ruling was probably technically correct, but was spiritually a bit of malfeasance that would have hung over the head of this tournament for far longer than the Bryson episode from earlier in the week had Scottie gone on to win in a playoff.

The histrionics — both from Scottie on tee shot and everyone else on the TIO relief (which was not at all his fault) — were many. But they were nothing compared to what happened with Bryson on Friday and into Saturday.

The biggest story of the 2026 Open Championship for three days and change was the capital-B, capital-G Big Golfer.

First, his spat with Nick Faldo following a first round 67. Then the complete rules circus that took place on Friday evening and spilled into Saturday morning. This was exacerbated by Rory McIlroy saying that Bryson held the tournament hostage.

Bryson, on the other hand, was — at least for the first three days — right where he loves to be: At the center of the spotlight where it’s bright enough that you can’t really tell if the noise is jeering or adulation so you chalk all of it up to the latter and call it a victory.

This Open — much to the delight of myself and others in the media business — turned into a thunderous major, a content bonanza. There is paradox in the noisiness, though. It’s endlessly entertaining — Bryson’s fit-throwing was the defining moment of the tournament, and Scottie’s 17th may have been the most intriguing hole played by a single player all week.

But — and if you watched the Western Conference Finals in the NBA this year, you know this to be true — the drama can be utterly exhausting. Likewise, it’s not aspirational. So I am of two minds. On one hand, I love it. It is the best. On the other hand, I hate it. It is the worst. Such is life covering pro sports in 2026.

And I think the reason I hate it is this undercurrent of entitlement. Nothing in my own life or among my kids and/or friends gets me more riled up than a spirit of entitlement. And while I’m not sure if that’s how I would characterize Scottie or Bryson personally, certainly their on-the-course theatrics can often (with Bryson) or sometimes (with Scottie) tell that story.

Enter … 2026 Open champion, Ryan Fox.

On a week when histrionics ruled the golf tournament, the most low-key player in the field (and possibly professional athlete in the world) walked through a door left just barely ajar by Cam Young over two hours earlier.

Foxy finished birdie-birdie-bogey-birdie-par-birdie to win his first ever major championship. Three things stood out.

1. A no-nonsense pace of play that makes Ludvig look like Tom Kim.
2. A no-nonsense disposition that makes Jalen Hurts completely look over the top.
3. An ability to hit all of the shots, even under the densest pressure.

The intersection of these came — as many people have pointed out — on the 15th hole, which was his lone bogey over those last six magnificently played holes. His ball on the par 3 15 — which he said was 1 yard from being 25 feet from the hole — ended up against the lip of a bunker guarding the front of the green.

He reacted like a man had just successfully secured a reservation at Chili’s.

There was less noise and fewer theatrics over this unfortunate break in the biggest moment of his golf life than you’ll find in a run of the mill YouTube golf video with nothing on the line.

[Jason here] He hit his chip backwards so fast that almost everyone around the green missed it. Including the score bearer, who told us after the hole that he made a par. [back to Kyle]

He actually made 4 on the 15th and birdie-par at 16 and 17 before stepping to the tee on 18, the hardest hole on the golf course all week. A place where just over 40 percent of the field was finding the fairway on Sunday. A hole where there had been just 27 birdies throughout the entire tournament and none of them with The Open on the line. He pummeled a ball 330 down the middle, raced up to it and about 2.2 seconds after the group in front exited the green, hit his approach to 11 feet.

Fox said that Scottie once told him that playing a three ball with him feels like playing a two ball anywhere else. That’s how quickly he plays. The ending was all the same.

A door slammer to win The Open (THE OPEN!) that took as much time as it takes me to read a 4 footer for triple in a game with three friends.

The celebration was just as quick. A bear-like roar with both fists in the air before nearly sprinting off to sign his scorecard. His acceptance speech was shorter than some of the questions I have asked in press conferences this year, and it was over.

Some might call that an unsatisfying ending to major championship season (which is understandable!). I found it to be a refreshing antidote to a sports culture — and honestly a society in general — that seems to gravitate toward noise. So many things in the world are perceived as successful based on which carnival barker can yelp the loudest. I am very much inside of this world, and I can affirm that it is exhausting (!). Fun almost all of the time, but also extremely tiring.

I realize that all of this is quite rich coming from someone who 1. Generates (hopefully enjoyable and meaningful) noise for a living and 2. Feeds off of others who do the same. Truly, I see the irony. But as much as I’m grateful for the cacophony of hoopla in professional sports, I appreciate even more when a player like Ryan Fox swoops in with no ego and no consideration for what he does or does not deserve and goes out and grabs the Open Championship.

And so the refreshing part is not a career grinder like Ryan Fox winning an Open Championship that demanded all of the shots (although that was refreshing).

Nor is it the guy who closed the hardest getting the biggest reward (although that was cool, too). No, the most refreshing part of Ryan Fox winning the Open Championship is that in a world and on a week where performative seemed to win the headlines, it was actual performance that won the day.

All of it from someone who seems unbothered by what the course does to him and unaware of how you can generate noise other than by making birdie at the last and letting the crowd do it for you.

Thank you for reading our Open Championship coverage this week, and thank you to Seed for making it possible. We do love making noise. We just hope it’s the good kind and not the head-banging heavy metal that Viktor Bryson loves to make.