Quick Answer: Ryan Fox is a 39-year-old New Zealand professional golfer who won the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, his first major title. He’s married to Anneke Ryff, has two daughters, and plays on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. His net worth isn’t publicly confirmed, but his official PGA Tour career earnings top $12.5 million.
Search “Ryan Fox” right now and Google hands you a strange mix of people. There’s a New Zealand golfer who just won a major, a former NBA player named Rick Fox, and a Nickelodeon actor named Sean Ryan Fox. Somewhere in the related searches, people are even asking about a Ryan Gosling sweater, which has nothing to do with any of them.
This page is about the golfer: the 39-year-old Aucklander who walked off the 18th green at Royal Birkdale in July 2026 as Champion Golfer of the Year. Since then, he’s fielded every question a suddenly famous athlete gets asked: how old he is, who his wife is, how much he won, what’s in his bag, and how much his caddie actually made.
Here’s what’s actually verified, pulled from Fox’s official PGA Tour bio, his own interviews, and the tournament reporting out of Royal Birkdale itself.
Quick Facts: Age, Height and Background
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Ryan Fox |
| Nickname | Foxy |
| Born | January 22, 1987 (age 39) |
| Birthplace | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Height | 6’0″ (183 cm), per his PGA Tour bio |
| Weight | 220 lbs (100 kg) |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Turned professional | 2012 |
| Current tours | PGA Tour, DP World Tour |
| Wife | Anneke Ryff (married 2019) |
| Children | Two daughters, Isabel and Margot |
| World ranking | No. 25 (as of August 26, 2026) |
That height figure needs a footnote. Fox’s own PGA Tour profile lists him at 6-foot-0, Wikipedia’s infobox says 5-foot-10, and CBS Sports has him at 5-foot-11. None of those numbers are wildly different, but they don’t match, which happens more than people assume with tour bios updated at different times by different organizations. We’re using the PGA Tour’s figure since it’s the source his own team maintains directly.
He turned pro in 2012 after representing New Zealand at the 2010 Eisenhower Trophy as an amateur. Rugby and cricket came first growing up, for reasons that will make sense in a second.
The Family Ryan Fox Was Born Into
Golf wasn’t the family trade. His father is Grant Fox, the former All Blacks fly-half who kicked New Zealand to the 1987 Rugby World Cup title and still holds the tournament record for points scored in a single World Cup. His grandfather, Merv Wallace, was a New Zealand cricketer who went on to coach the national team.
Three generations, three different sports, all at an elite level. Fox has talked about his dad caddying for him at amateur events in the United States, where he got beaten badly enough to understand exactly how far he had to go to compete at that level.
How Ryan Fox Became a Major Champion
For most of his career, Fox was the guy golf fans half-recognized. Four DP World Tour wins between 2019 and 2023, a Seve Ballesteros Award as the European Tour’s 2022 Player of the Year, then two PGA Tour wins in 2025 at the Myrtle Beach Classic and the RBC Canadian Open. Respected, consistent, not exactly a headline name.
The 2026 Open Championship changed that in four days.
Fox arrived at Royal Birkdale outside most experts’ list of contenders and made the cut right on the number. Then he fired a third-round 62, tying the record for the lowest single round ever posted in a men’s major championship. That round alone moved him from even par to 8-under and into the mix, two shots behind Sam Burns’ 54-hole lead.
Sunday came down to the 72nd hole. Fox and Cameron Young were tied at 9-under, with Young already in the clubhouse after a closing 64. Fox chose to attack the final hole rather than play it safe for a playoff, a decision he told reporters afterward he’d have lived with either way it went. His approach landed about 12 feet from the pin, and the putt fell for the winning birdie and a closing 68.
It made Fox the third New Zealander ever to win a men’s major, and the first since Michael Campbell beat Tiger Woods at the 2005 U.S. Open. Steve Williams, the Kiwi caddie who worked Woods’ bag for 13 of his majors, told reporters he broke his own habit of skipping golf broadcasts just to watch a fellow New Zealander finish it off.
Cameron Young wasn’t the only contender left with nothing that week. Bryson DeChambeau, another player in that Open field, said afterward he believes a two-shot penalty was the difference between him and a real shot at the Claret Jug.
Wife, Kids and Where Ryan Fox Actually Lives
Fox married Anneke Ryff on March 9, 2019, on Rakino Island in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf. They have two daughters, Isabel and Margot.
His official PGA Tour bio lists his residence simply as Auckland. That’s accurate, but it skips a detail Fox has explained himself. In a February 2026 interview, he described spending eight years based in London while building his European Tour career, and said the family currently splits its year between Auckland and Jupiter, Florida, a common base for tour pros who spend part of the season in the U.S. Auckland, in his own words, is still the place that feels like home.
That showed after the Open. Fox’s father met him at Auckland Airport when he flew back with the Claret Jug. A few hours later, reporters tracked the new major champion down at his local bakery, eating a steak, bacon, jam and cheese pie. Major champion, still a hometown guy.
Ryan Fox’s Net Worth: What’s Actually Verified
Here’s the honest answer. Nobody has a reliable, sourced net worth figure for Ryan Fox, and that includes us.
Search “Ryan Fox net worth” and you’ll land on several sites quoting numbers somewhere between $8 million and $12 million. Look closer at those same pages and the accuracy problems show up fast. One lists his birthday as April 29, 1987. Official sources confirm the real date is January 22.
Another site puts his height at 6-foot-5, nearly half a foot taller than any legitimate listing. These are recycled celebrity-net-worth templates, not researched figures. We’ve flagged the same pattern before on Alex Fitzpatrick’s page, another PGA Tour player whose online “net worth” is really just a guess wearing a dollar sign.
What we can verify: Fox’s official PGA Tour career earnings sit at $12,587,742 through the 2026 season, straight from the Tour’s own stats page. Add his DP World Tour prize money, his $3.2 million Open Championship winner’s check, and years of equipment income from sponsors like Srixon and Cleveland Golf, and his real career earnings run meaningfully higher than that PGA Tour figure alone. Turning that into an actual net worth means guessing at taxes, agent fees, investments and cost of living across two countries, and none of that is public information. Anyone handing you a precise number is making it up.
What’s In Ryan Fox’s Bag: The 2026 WITB
Fox plays a Srixon-and-Cleveland setup, with one notable exception at the flatstick. Here’s what he had in play at Royal Birkdale, based on on-site reporting from GolfWRX and Golf Monthly.
| Club | Model |
|---|---|
| Driver | Srixon ZXi RKT LS+ (prototype, 10.5°) |
| 3-wood | Srixon ZXi RKT (prototype, 15°) |
| 3-iron | Srixon ZXi5+ (prototype, 20°) |
| Irons (4-PW) | Srixon ZXi7 |
| Wedges | Cleveland RTZ (50°, 56°, 60°) |
| Putter | Ping Anser-style blade |
| Ball | Srixon Z-Star XV |
Two things worth flagging. First, the driver, 3-wood and 3-iron are all pre-release prototypes, not clubs sitting on a shelf yet, which is standard for a tour pro testing gear ahead of a retail launch. Second, that putter is the one non-Srixon, non-Cleveland club in the bag.
Blade-style putters like the Anser have fallen out of fashion compared to mallets on tour, and Fox sticking with one says something about how much he trusts a simple, repeatable stroke over a forgiving head design.
Want to understand what numbers like 10.5° and 15° actually mean for ball flight? Our golf club lofts guide breaks down every loft in the bag, club by club.
Who Is Ryan Fox’s Caddie, and How Much Did He Make at the Open?
Dean Smith, a South African caddie, has carried Fox’s bag since late 2021, after Fox split with previous caddie Chris Selfridge. Smith had already worked for players including Oliver Wilson, An Byeong-hun and Shubhankar Sharma before joining Fox, and the new partnership produced the 2023 BMW PGA Championship win well before the 2026 major arrived.
Now the number people are actually searching for: how much did Dean Smith make from the Open win?
Fox’s winner’s share at Royal Birkdale was $3.2 million, the largest single winner’s check in Open Championship history, out of a total purse of $17.75 million. There’s no published, standardized caddie cut written into any tour rulebook, but the widely accepted norm is that a winning caddie takes home roughly 10% of the player’s prize money. Under that benchmark, Smith’s payday from Fox’s win works out to approximately $320,000.
That figure is a well-supported estimate based on common tour practice, not a confirmed contract number. Individual player-caddie arrangements are private, and the going rate reportedly drops for finishes outside a win, closer to 7% for a top-10 and around 5% further down the leaderboard. But $320,000 is the number nearly every outlet covering the story landed on, and it’s consistent with what recent Open winners’ caddies have reportedly taken home in the same position.
Ryan Fox’s World Ranking, FedExCup Standing and Current Form
As of August 26, 2026, Fox sits at No. 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking and 30th in the FedExCup standings. His career-high OWGR position is still No. 23, set back in October 2022, which tells you how much ground his 2026 season has made up without yet setting a new personal best.
He’s set to tee off Thursday, August 27, in the first round of the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, a $40 million event where he’ll be grouped with Tom Kim in round one. It’s Fox’s first trip to the Tour Championship in five years.
His two starts heading into East Lake were quieter than his major-week heroics: a tie for 50th at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, then a tie for 47th at the BMW Championship. Neither was memorable, but both kept him inside the top 30 needed to reach the FedExCup’s season finale.
For the 2026 season as a whole, Fox has one win, three top-10s and eight top-25 finishes, having made 16 of 18 cuts.
Ryan Fox’s Full Career Stats and Major Championship Record
Here’s where Fox stands across all four men’s majors, including his complete 2026 major season.
| Major championship | Best finish | 2026 result |
|---|---|---|
| Masters Tournament | T26 (2023) | CUT |
| PGA Championship | T23 (2023) | T35 |
| U.S. Open | T19 (2025) | T23 |
| The Open Championship | Won (2026) | Won |
That’s the full arc of his 2026 major season in one table: a missed cut at Augusta in April, a T35 at Aronimink in May, a T23 at Shinnecock Hills in June, then the Claret Jug at Royal Birkdale in July. Three quietly solid results and one that rewrote his career.
On the numbers side, Fox ranks 80th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Total and 21st in driving distance for the 2026 season, an average approaching 315 yards off the tee. Putting has been his weaker link statistically, ranking 90th in Strokes Gained: Putting, which makes his final-round performance at Royal Birkdale, four birdies over his last six holes, look even better in context.
Across his career, Fox has won roughly 20 professional titles worldwide: three on the PGA Tour counting the Open Championship, four on the DP World Tour, and the rest split across the PGA Tour of Australasia, the Challenge Tour and other regional circuits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Ryan Fox?
Fox was born January 22, 1987, making him 39 years old as of August 2026. He’ll turn 40 in January 2027.
Where does Ryan Fox live?
His official residence is listed as Auckland, New Zealand. He and his family also spend part of the year in Jupiter, Florida, after previously being based in London for eight years while Fox built his European Tour career.
How much did Ryan Fox win today?
Fox isn’t in action today. His most recent finish was a tie for 47th at the BMW Championship, and his next event is the Tour Championship, which begins Thursday, August 27, 2026, at East Lake Golf Club. His biggest payday of 2026 remains the $3.2 million he earned winning the Open Championship on July 19.
What’s Ryan Fox’s net worth?
There’s no verified figure. Unofficial estimates online range from $8 million to $12 million, but none of them are sourced to anything beyond guesswork. His confirmed PGA Tour career earnings stand at $12,587,742.
Who caddies for Ryan Fox?
Dean Smith, a South African caddie who has been on Fox’s bag since late 2021.
Fox isn’t the only player finding his best form deep into his late 30s. Our profile on Hideki Matsuyama covers another major champion doing the same thing, on the same ranking system, at the same stage of his career.