Fox's Open Championship win at Royal Birkdale is the headline. But Lucas Herbert's top-six finish, and a New Zealand Open in Queenstown that Australians have owned for years, tell you this rivalry runs both ways.

The Putt That Ended a 21-Year Wait

Ryan Fox showed up at Royal Birkdale ranked outside the world's top 50 and walked off with the Claret Jug. A 12-foot birdie on the 72nd hole got him to 10 under, one shot clear of American Cameron Young, and made him the third New Zealander ever to win a men's major, following Bob Charles in 1963 and Michael Campbell in 2005. Most of the damage was done a day earlier anyway, when Fox carded a third-round 62, among the lowest rounds ever shot in a men's major, on a course that had chewed up better-fancied names all week. He arrived at Birkdale ranked 56th in the world and left it ranked 22nd, the biggest single-week jump of his career. He bogeyed twice on the final nine and still found the putt when it mattered. "Dream come true," Fox called it afterward. For a country that hadn't produced a major champion since Campbell's 2005 U.S. Open, that's putting it mildly.

Australia Was Right There Too

Lucas Herbert led Royal Birkdale outright at the halfway mark and finished tied for sixth, which is a result that would have made headlines of its own in most weeks. This year it's the undercard. Go back to February and the New Zealand Open at Queenstown already had the shape of a trans-Tasman scrap: Ryan Peake, the West Australian who won the title in 2025, came back to defend it. Travis Smyth spent the entire 2025-26 season grinding toward the PGA Tour of Australasia's Order of Merit. New Zealand's response came from Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori, both regular names on the DP World Tour. Fox skipped Queenstown altogether, choosing his PGA Tour schedule instead. In February that looked like a fairly routine call. By July it looked like the right one.

Speaking to Gambling.com, a leading authority whose trusted editorial team publishes an NZ pokies guide covering licensing, game formats and player protections and other sports betting guidance, a sports analyst said: “Fox has delivered the biggest result in this rivalry for two decades, but Herbert’s top-six finish and Australia’s dominance in Queenstown show the balance of power hasn’t suddenly shifted. New Zealand owns the headline; Australia still has the greater depth.”

A Rivalry With Some History Behind It

None of this happened in a vacuum. The PGA Tour of Australasia's Order of Merit has swung back and forth across the Tasman for years: New Zealand's Kazuma Kobori topped it in 2023-24, Australia's Elvis Smylie took it the year after, and now Smyth is trying to bring it home again. It's a smaller stage than a major at Royal Birkdale, but it's the same names, roughly, cycling through the same rivalry season after season. Fox came up through that circuit himself before he ever left for Europe and the U.S. So did Herbert. The Open just happened to be where it showed up loudest this year.

If This Has You Thinking About a Trip

Plenty of Australian golfers already treat a trip across the Tasman as a pilgrimage, not a detour, and a week like this won't quiet that instinct. Ausgolf's rundown of New Zealand's finest courses and lodges covers the North Island standouts, Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers among them. Worth a look if you're planning to see the place that just produced a major champion.

What's Next

Fox's Open exemption runs until he turns 60. His PGA Tour card as reigning champion holds through 2031, so this isn't a one-off story that fades by September. Peake defends his New Zealand Open title again next February, back in Queenstown, in front of a home crowd that just watched a Kiwi win a major for the first time since 2005. Smyth is still chasing that Order of Merit. Neither country is short of reasons to keep score.