Ryan Fox stood on the 18th tee and the decision was made to take it on.
There would be no thought of getting in for par and facing Cameron Young in a play-off to decide The Open. And with the Claret Jug there to be won, the New Zealander went for it.
“I did say to my caddie, Dean, on the tee that we were going to take it on, that I was going to try to win the tournament, and I’d live with the consequences if I stuffed it up,” said Fox.
It needed three perfect shots to do so and get to 10 under par.
Amid a dramatic Sunday afternoon with many twists and turns in a closely-contested battle for The Open Championship, he needed to keep calm but also be brave. He was both.
The man from a family of fine sporting stock was within touching distance of his own sporting immortality.
His father, Grant, was a World Cup winning All-Black in rugby union and his grandfather, Merv Wallace, was an international Test cricket captain.
Now here he was with the opportunity to win golf’s most historic tournament but one mistake could cost him at a sun-baked Royal Birkdale.
Young worked away on the driving range in preparation for a play-off. He had been waiting for two-and-a-half hours as nobody had beaten or matched his 9-under score posted in the clubhouse.
Sam Burns looked like he would, then so did Si Woo Kim while world No 1 Scottie Scheffler even got himself into the mix. Earlier in the day, the home crowd believed Tommy Fleetwood could end the long English wait on his local course.
Yet heading into the final hole of the whole tournament, it was Fox, Burns and Young left in contention.
Fox had the honour and stood by his conviction to belt a 330-yard drive down the middle of the fairway. Just two more brilliant shots were needed.
American Burns outdrove him and he needed a birdie to at best force a play-off.
Fox stood over his approach and fired it into the green with the precision of how his father would once put the oval ball through the posts for the All Blacks.
It was just a bit shy of 12ft. Burns was further away and he would miss his putt before cleaning up for par to leave the path clear for his playing partner to attempt to win The Open in the regulation 72 holes.
It was just 22 seconds from Burns taking his ball out of the hole to Fox stepping up to hit his for the biggest putt of his life.
In a sport which seems to get slower with procrastination and pontification over every shot leading us to rounds lasting well over five hours at times, Fox is one of the fastest to play and he kept that up even with so much on the line.
For a brief moment, it looked like the putt might be just short but it dropped and Fox’s arms rose into the air in celebration as the thousands around the green roared in delight and he became just the second New Zealander to win the Claret Jug after Bob Charles in 1963.
“I hit two shots exactly how I wanted to hit them,” said Fox. “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.
“Everyone practises on the green, I guess, you’ve got to a putt to win a major championship, to win The Open. It’s not like that in real life. It’s not a very comfortable feeling. It’s certainly very enjoyable when you see it go in.”
It was the perfect final hole to snatch the victory away from Young.
The American heard the roars from the 18th green on the range and he put the head cover back on his driver in disappointment.
He would have to settle for second in The Open again after finishing behind Australian Cameron Smith in 2022, which was the last time this event was decided by just one shot.
Young had posted an impressive 64 to fire himself to the top of the leaderboard just after 4pm but he bogeyed the last hole despite a bunker shot for par being within a whisker of dropping. In the end, that would be the difference between a play-off and heading home empty handed.
It was made all the more dramatic by the fact Fox looked like he had blown it on the 15th after steering himself back into the joint lead with back-to-back birdies on 13 and 14.
A tee shot found the bunker on the long par-three and it was almost under the lip which forced the Kiwi to play out backwards.
The resulting bogey pushed him back to eight under but a birdie on 16 returned him to co-leader.
When he missed a chance at another birdie on 17, Young must have felt it was time to really ramp up the warm-up for a play-off. But then Fox played the perfect 18.
Fox went into the day just two shots behind playing partner and overnight leader Burns, which came about after a record-equalling 62 on Saturday following opening rounds of 72 and 68.
Yet they must have felt a bit like they had shown up to someone else’s party earlier in the day.
They will have heard the roar for Fleetwood sinking a putt on the first hole from almost 80ft as they were preparing themselves to head out as the final pairing.
At one point during the front nine, Fox asked a course marshal, “Is it always this quiet on a Sunday?”. Fear not, he would get his crowd.
The locals first wanted Southport man Fleetwood to claim the Claret Jug and become the first Englishman to do so since Nick Faldo in 1992.
When he birdied the fifth to go 7 under, the belief grew. When he followed it up with another on 8 to go two within the lead, the atmosphere was electric. Yet it was zapped by three bogeys on the trot around the turn.
There was a fine finish from Fleetwood as he birdied the last two holes and fought back the tears as he walked down the 18th fairway of the course he used to sneak onto to play as a child with thousands cheering his name. Rounds of 69, 67, 69 and 68 were impressive, but ultimately not good enough.
“It was just very, very special,” said Fleetwood. “This disappointment that I didn’t win today or I couldn’t get it done when I was in a really good position, 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.”
This day was about Fox. A late bloomer in the sport, he was a rookie on the DP World Tour at 30, then on the PGA Tour at 37 and now, at 39, he is a Major champion.
“You want to do it whether you think it’s a reality or not,” added Fox.
“I guess I probably didn’t think it was a reality until the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the major championships consistently until the last couple of years.
“To be sitting in front of you guys now as the Champion Golfer of the Year is a bit crazy. As I said earlier, it’s surreal. I don’t have the vocabulary to explain it.
“If you’d have given me my career up till yesterday when I first turned pro, I would have jumped at it. Now I probably would have killed people for it.”
