In the end, it was the man named Fox who was the top dog at Wentworth. Mounting the kind of mighty salvage operation that was akin to raising the Mary Rose, Ryan Fox produced a thrilling recovery to land the BMW PGA Championship.
The lingering threat of lightning, which caused an 80-minute delay to proceedings, was nothing compared to the electric performance that Fox produced on the West Course. Well, eventually.
A triple-bogey on his third hole appeared to have dealt Fox’s title ambitions a mortal blow but the 36-year-old sparked himself into life and conjured a crackling comeback that just about fused the National Grid. The Kiwi covered his final 13 holes in a sparkling eight-under for a five-under 67 and an 18-under aggregate.
That gave him a slender one stroke victory over the 2020 champion, Tyrrell Hatton, and the gallant Aaron Rai as Fox, the son of All Blacks rugby great Grant, became the first New Zealander to win the DP World Tour’s flagship event in its long, distinguished history.
It was a tremendous victory after a trying spell for Fox and his family. This, however, was a family affair to savour.
“We have been through a pretty tough year as I lost my father-in-law in June after a really, really short battle with cancer,” said Fox, who embraced his wife and two children at the greenside amid jubilant, emotional scenes. “That kind of rocked the family.
"To have them here and have number two with us, little Margot who is four months old, is very, very special. To have a back nine like that, especially after how I started the day, it’s amazing.”
It was quite the day. Ludvig Aberg, the brilliant young Swede, had led by two strokes after 54-holes and was seeking back-to-back wins in just his 10th event as a professional.
It wasn’t to be, though. Unflappable for much of the week, the 23-year-old rookie shoogled like a wonky IKEA flat-pack unit and a bogey on his first hole was followed by ruinous double-bogeys at the fifth and seventh. A 76 saw him slither out of the running. It was all part of the learning process. He’s got an even bigger one coming up at the Ryder Cup.
As Aberg toiled, Hatton, who began the day five shots adrift, got cracking with birdies at the second and third and almost made a hole-in-one on the fifth when his tee-shot thundered into the pin.
Hatton certainly had the bit between his gnashers and, after holing a bunker shot on the sixth, further gains at 10 and 11 propelled him into a four-shot lead. By that point, though, Fox was fixing the bayonet and mounting an all-or-nothing charge and four birdies in five holes from the 10th got him to within a stroke of the lead.
Hatton then drove out of bounds on the 15th and was facing a bogey putt when the hooter sounded. For the lighting threat that is, not the danger posed by Hatton’s notorious temper. When play resumed, Fox was lucky that his own drive on 15 didn’t find impenetrable foliage and he made the most of his good fortune by clattering a quite magical approach from the pine straw to within 10-feet, holing the birdie putt and inching in front.
Rai, the Scottish Open champion in 2020, was making a valiant fist of it too. With Hatton making a birdie on the last in a 66 for 17-under, Rai, after a bold approach to the 18th, saw his eagle putt to get to 18-under clip the hole against a backdrop of oohs and ahhs. Fox then knocked in his six-footer for a birdie on the last to clinch a famous win.
Jon Rahm, runner-up on his last two appearances at Wentworth, finished fourth on 16-under with a typically swashbuckling 68 while Rory McIlroy, who made the cut with not much to spare, roared up into a tie for seventh with a 65.
Scotland’s Connor Syme, meanwhile, was right in the thick of it and was playing in the final group with Aberg and Tommy Fleetwood. Unfortunately, the Fifer found himself on the backfoot early on and bogeys at the second and third were followed by a triple-bogey seven on the eighth.
Syme’s 74 gave him a 12-under total and a share of 10th. It was Syme’s fourth top-10 in a row on the tour but it came with a sighing sense of what might have been.
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