2026 Open Championship stock report: Who’s up, who’s down from Birkdale

SOUTHPORT, England — Ryan Fox will hit many ten-footers in his life. He’ll never hit another one like that one.

As it turns out, this is the beauty of Sunday at a major championship. The work of many, many years — a lifetime, even — comes to fruition in an instant. A life changes forever. All that was before is removed by all that now is. And Ryan Fox now is a major champion.

The 39-year-old Kiwi is the only reasonable place to start this week’s post-major championship stock report, and he enters the proceedings with his holdings trading at an all-time high.

Post-major championship season stock report

Ryan Fox — Stock Peaking

Let me tell you about a little New Zealand company that just had its ship come in. Yep, its name is Ryan Fox, Inc., and after a pro career that featured just three wins and little to speak of by way of memorable victories, it’s on the way TO THE MOON.

OK — maybe I spent a little bit too much time on r/WallStreetBets before writing this story, but truth be told, Foxy’s performance at Royal Birkdale remains one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve witnessed in six years on the golf beat. Fox is not just an all-time good hang, he’s not just a player who upholds all of tournament golf’s most aspirational qualities (dignity, an even-keel, plays in a hurry), but he’s also the exact kind of personality you’d hope to win a major championship.

It’s fascinating to think about the doors that will open for him for the rest of his competitive life as a result of Sunday’s victory, including a first-career start at the Presidents Cup this fall at Medinah (how in the name of all that is the post-LIV international team has Fox never made a start in the event?). If it never gets better than tucking the Claret Jug into the overhead compartment on a Boeing 737 this morning, I think Fox will be alright with that.

Scottie Scheffler — Stock Rising

This is a bit of a speculative play, particularly after the World No. 1’s comparatively “disappointing” major season (three top-10s including a runner-up finish at the Masters), but I want to tell you about something I witnessed at Royal Birkdale that influenced my decision.

It was late on Saturday night, as the leaders were coming off the golf course, when Scheffler arrived on a quiet corner of the practice range. He’d just played what looked like a maddening round of golf — brilliant iron play, a bunch of missed shorties — and you could just tell he was stewing about it.

He walked onto the practice green with his putting coach, Phil Kenyon, and wordlessly got to work on the exact type of putt it seemed like he’d missed 20 of on Saturday: A 10-footer with maybe five inches of subtle break.

Over the next three minutes, I watched as Scheffler poured in six straight 10-footers from all angles surrounding the cup. With a Tour make-rate of roughly 40 percent from that distance, the odds of that outcome in that moment were 1 in 252.

When the sixth of those putts rolled in, I watched as Scheffler — all alone on the range — laughed to himself. As if to say, ‘oh great, NOW they fall.’

What that moment taught me is that Scottie Scheffler is not facing a crisis of ability. He’s in his own head a little bit. And when he figures out how to step out of that, he’s probably going to start mowing people down again. I’m betting on that outcome happening sooner rather than later.

Bryson DeChambeau — Stock DOWN

It felt like an all-around damaging week for DeChambeau, who actually played pretty great golf in between the planet-shattering controversy and the outright refusal to speak to the press. I empathized deeply with the emotional struggle he faced after that two-shot penalty on Friday night, and how hard it must have been to regroup after having his tournament altered in a manner that felt outside of his control.

But resiliency in the face of adversity is one of many reasons why professional golfers make a lot more money than I do, and I was disappointed that Bryson’s week ended with two consecutive over-par rounds to end the tournament mostly out of contention. For those keeping score, that’s three missed cuts and one very disappointing T14 for the most polarizing player in the sport.

Bryson’s vice grip on golf content — Stock UP

It would be altogether incomplete to rate Bryson’s performance this weekend on his golf alone, considering his golf played but a supporting role in the biggest drama of Open Championship weekend.

While Bryson might not have earned himself a Christmas card from the R&A by traipsing around the property with little regard for traditional golf decorum, he certainly earned himself a beer at every pub on the west coast of England with his performance over the weekend at Birkdale. Forgetting his golf for a second, DeChambeau’s performance was a stark reminder that he is golf’s needle-mover in the post-Tiger era. There’s nobody like him … even when he’s turning the petulant meter up to 11 by blowing off the media.

Cam Young — “Suffering Builds Character”

Two hours waiting in the player dining area for a playoff only to lose to a soul-crushing birdie in the final group on the 72nd hole? Yep, that is the golf equivalent of kick in the pants. And yet I weirdly think if he got another chance on Sunday at a major like that, he wouldn’t smoke his six-iron into the face of the 18th hole bunker again.

Shouldn’t he have known that already?

Of course he KNEW that already. But until you’ve watched one slip through your fingers like Cam Young just did, you can’t know how careful you truly have to be. Especially in a bunker on the 72nd hole.

Jordan Spieth — Suffering might not build character

That HAD to suck. The last time you were at Birkdale, you played maybe the most memorable final round of any golfer in the last decade. You were not just on top of the world, you were staring down a decade as the single most dominant star the sport had seen since Tiger Woods.

And then, nearly a decade later, you missed the cut at Birkdale and it hardly even counted as news.

I feel like the word belief gets thrown around a lot in Spieth’s context. I don’t think that’s a fair word. Of course Spieth believes. He should believe. That golfer still lives in his body somewhere. But I’m not sure we’re ever going to find a good reason for what’s happened over the last nine years.

Here’s the thing: Spieth is a great guy. I’m not sure why such a uniquely Sisyphean burden has befallen such an exceedingly nice person. I’m hopeful there’s a good reason for it all — a moment that’s going to make all this suffering worth it. I’m fearful there might not be.

Tommy Fleetwood — Stock NEUTRAL

Short of a victory at the Open, it’s hard to see how this weekend could have gone any better for Tommy Fleetwood, the hometown kid who basked in the crowd’s adulation for four long days at Royal Birkdale. He shot four straight rounds in the sixties, the only player in the field to do it. He was in contention from the very beginning. He made clutch putts and kept himself in the running right until the bitter end.

And yet this weekend felt … very much like a lot of other major championship weekends for Fleetwood. He is in some ways a victim of his own success. He’s good enough to win a major, and until he does it, everything less than a major victory will feel like a failure.

Sam Burns — *Shrug emoji*

There is little question that Burns belongs on a very short list of best players in the world right now. Long a certified striper, his play has ascended onto another level in ’26. When he woke up on Sunday morning with a two-shot lead and no real chasers, I figured we were due to see his coronation.

Then came a dispiriting Sunday performance. Which followed a handful of other Sunday major duds over the last few years. If Burns had gone out and shot one under on the same golf course Cameron Young shot nine under on Sunday, this whole column would be dedicated to him. Instead, he missed a birdie putt on the last to lose by two.

The good news: I still think that coronation is coming. Eventually. The bad news: If it didn’t come on Sunday at Birkdale, I’m not sure when a better opportunity will arise.

And yet it’s not all drab for Mr. Burns. He continued a recent string of good press this week at the Open, sharing the story of his unlikely arrival in the event in the first place following the birth of his daughter, Belle. And then, when the cameras were all focused on his playing partner, Ryan Fox, Burns did something even more impressive: He stopped and gave a genuine round of applause for the tournament winner. He had to be gutted in that moment, but his actions spoke a lot about what exists within him.

In other words, it makes me want to believe in him. Whether you’re on the bandwagon with me is entirely up to you.

Si Woo Kim — Points for Honesty

Si Woo’s stock right now is a bit like when a company embroils itself an a particularly embarrassing controversy but is then rewarded by investors for being forthcoming about the mistake.

Did Si Woo Kim choke on Sunday at the Open Championship, when he went in in 40 after making the turn with the lead?

Yes, yes he did.

Did his willingness to admit as much on Instagram on Monday morning help the lens through which I viewed his performance?

Yes, yes it did.

Casey Jarvis — Meme Stock

There’s a group out there somewhere in South Africa who bought $500 worth of Casey Jarvis as a joke a few years ago, when he was the 2000th-ranked golfer in the world and missing the cut at an event named the “Bain’s Cape Town Open.” That group woke up on Sunday see their investment was worth a million dollars.

Okay – more like half of a million dollars. But still, Jarvis’ charge up the leaderboard on Sunday at Birkdale to finish T6 for his first-ever major top-10 was nothing shy of inspiring. The Open is nothing if not an open call for golfers to make a name for themselves. With one good week, you can be somebody. On Monday, Casey Jarvis is a guy with a major top-10 and $550,000 in his pocket and trending status on the DP World Tour.

And best of all? We might not have seen the last of him yet. Here’s hoping those fellas back home in Boksburg aren’t quite ready to sell.