‘Burn or Compliment?’ Ryan  Fox Wants Media to Decide  What Scottie Scheffler  Meant by This Remark

After winning The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, Ryan Fox was asked about the reputation that follows him around every PGA Tour and DP World Tour stop. What does it feel like to be the fastest player in golf?

That question sent him straight back to a moment earlier in the year at the WM Phoenix Open, when he was grouped with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in a Saturday three-ball at the WM Phoenix Open.

“I played with Scottie Scheffler earlier in the year, and I can’t work out if this was a burn or a compliment,” Fox said, per PGA Tour on X.

“We played at Phoenix, and we’re in a three-ball on Saturday. We walk off the ninth tee, and he goes, ‘Foxy, it doesn’t even feel like you’re in the group. It just feels like we’re playing in a two-ball, you hit it so fast. It’s just in the air.’”

Fox left it up to the media to decide whether Scottie Scheffler’s comment about his pace of play was a burn or a compliment.

“You guys can tell me if it’s a burn or a compliment,” he added during the same interview. “It is just always how I’ve played.”

For the record, it wasn’t just Scheffler; almost everyone who has ever played with Fox would call it a compliment.

His caddie, Dean Smith, has called him the fastest player in the world. 

 NBC’s Jim “Bones” Mackay, who has worked alongside major champions for decades, said he has never seen a quicker player in his TV career.

Min Woo Lee, a close friend of Fox’s on tour, said Fox’s pace never wavers no matter how big the stage is. Even at a major, Fox plays exactly the same way.

“Even this week I was slowing down just because it was a major, but (Fox) just plays his own game and that’s something that I think everyone can learn off,” Lee said, per PGA Tour.com.

“When a fast player wins, it’s the greatest thing ever. He has a lot of grit.”

How Going Fast Actually Won Him the Open Championship

Nowhere was that lightning speed of Fox more obvious than on Sunday at Royal Birkdale. And nowhere did it matter more.

Fox started the 154th Open in a tie for 52nd after an opening 72, seven shots off the pace. By the turn on the weekend, he’d erased the gap.

He tied the all-time major championship record for a single round with an 8-under 62 on Saturday, then backed it up with a final-round 68 to finish at 10-under 270, edging Cameron Young by a single shot.

What made it even more impressive was how he did it. When Fox made his second bogey on the par-4 11th hole and fell two shots behind Young, he didn’t waste any time coming back in the par-4 13th.

“I was never methodical at anything, to be honest,” Fox said, according to PGA Tour.com. “The less time I have to think about it, the less bad stuff can creep in there.”

The same thing happened when his ball found a bunker at the 15th and eventually ended up with a bogey. He birdied two of the last three holes and waited for the rest to end the round.

And at the end, twenty-two seconds is all Fox needed to strike the biggest putt of his life, standing on the 18th tee tied with Young to clinch the last major of the season.

“It’s not that difficult to pick a shot and pick a club. I get in there, and it all happens quick,” Fox said.

And his caddie?

“I’ve done 250 tournaments with him, and it’s never changed,” said Smith. “People see it as, like, he’s flying around there, and he is in a way, but it takes any doubt out.”