The Arc · recap
The Arc: the 2026 Open Championship
Ryan Fox turned a weekend that began at even par into the Claret Jug. This is the comeback, the Sunday probability line, and the honest scorecard of the six-name board we published before the first tee.
Fox won the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale at 10-under, one stroke ahead of Cameron Young. Before the championship, we published The Read: the 2026 Open Championship. This Arc returns to that exact public board and shows both what it earned and what it missed.
Act I - the winner's arc
Fox opened with rounds of 72 and 68, reaching the weekend at even par and T52. A Saturday 62 moved him to 8-under for the week. On Sunday, the live win-probability we tracked opened at 10.2%, fell as low as 3.8% through 11, and reached 45.2% after his birdie at 16 pulled him level for the lead.
The swing — Ryan Fox, final round · the live win-probability we tracked · model estimate.
The arc line — Ryan Fox · the live win-probability we tracked · model estimate.
View all 155 captured probability values
Complete final-round series in capture order. Values are model estimates; no points are smoothed, interpolated, or removed.
| Snapshot | Win probability |
|---|---|
| 1 | 10.171245% |
| 2 | 10.252624% |
| 3 | 10.133634% |
| 4 | 10.378570% |
| 5 | 10.441084% |
| 6 | 10.429645% |
| 7 | 10.471467% |
| 8 | 10.472643% |
| 9 | 10.486596% |
| 10 | 10.451764% |
| 11 | 10.522146% |
| 12 | 10.209768% |
| 13 | 10.390042% |
| 14 | 10.395518% |
| 15 | 10.400771% |
| 16 | 10.271119% |
| 17 | 10.225194% |
| 18 | 10.309781% |
| 19 | 10.284577% |
| 20 | 10.251323% |
| 21 | 10.436745% |
| 22 | 10.314330% |
| 23 | 10.363523% |
| 24 | 10.473780% |
| 25 | 10.367552% |
| 26 | 10.353772% |
| 27 | 10.543621% |
| 28 | 10.416109% |
| 29 | 10.598434% |
| 30 | 10.488041% |
| 31 | 10.477204% |
| 32 | 10.476117% |
| 33 | 10.168807% |
| 34 | 10.240737% |
| 35 | 10.419608% |
| 36 | 10.517650% |
| 37 | 10.437982% |
| 38 | 10.368756% |
| 39 | 10.230420% |
| 40 | 10.228126% |
| 41 | 10.431322% |
| 42 | 10.469377% |
| 43 | 10.069824% |
| 44 | 10.220303% |
| 45 | 10.589116% |
| 46 | 10.466056% |
| 47 | 10.318089% |
| 48 | 10.061466% |
| 49 | 10.232056% |
| 50 | 10.383675% |
| 51 | 10.477311% |
| 52 | 10.461305% |
| 53 | 10.520027% |
| 54 | 10.481924% |
| 55 | 10.487069% |
| 56 | 10.299713% |
| 57 | 10.041139% |
| 58 | 10.304148% |
| 59 | 10.305894% |
| 60 | 10.087578% |
| 61 | 10.091828% |
| 62 | 10.479846% |
| 63 | 10.040543% |
| 64 | 10.249901% |
| 65 | 10.131930% |
| 66 | 9.715036% |
| 67 | 9.582146% |
| 68 | 9.876580% |
| 69 | 9.877484% |
| 70 | 9.882564% |
| 71 | 9.897288% |
| 72 | 9.810916% |
| 73 | 10.014475% |
| 74 | 9.690671% |
| 75 | 9.793371% |
| 76 | 9.116008% |
| 77 | 9.006944% |
| 78 | 8.876531% |
| 79 | 9.509426% |
| 80 | 9.450313% |
| 81 | 9.713072% |
| 82 | 9.736139% |
| 83 | 10.026169% |
| 84 | 10.767739% |
| 85 | 11.057176% |
| 86 | 16.791273% |
| 87 | 14.732385% |
| 88 | 14.556399% |
| 89 | 14.688569% |
| 90 | 14.020697% |
| 91 | 17.705584% |
| 92 | 17.487138% |
| 93 | 17.123768% |
| 94 | 16.491315% |
| 95 | 15.323232% |
| 96 | 15.168870% |
| 97 | 15.162711% |
| 98 | 12.410177% |
| 99 | 14.170499% |
| 100 | 14.169100% |
| 101 | 16.765561% |
| 102 | 15.636682% |
| 103 | 15.422808% |
| 104 | 16.462917% |
| 105 | 16.349877% |
| 106 | 16.460060% |
| 107 | 20.269613% |
| 108 | 19.952218% |
| 109 | 20.081418% |
| 110 | 20.210560% |
| 111 | 20.205306% |
| 112 | 20.476155% |
| 113 | 8.818963% |
| 114 | 8.984852% |
| 115 | 9.102258% |
| 116 | 9.341628% |
| 117 | 7.781342% |
| 118 | 8.066731% |
| 119 | 8.419301% |
| 120 | 8.305564% |
| 121 | 10.722285% |
| 122 | 11.294846% |
| 123 | 3.849392% |
| 124 | 5.022304% |
| 125 | 4.976276% |
| 126 | 4.198395% |
| 127 | 4.466055% |
| 128 | 4.406693% |
| 129 | 4.402939% |
| 130 | 14.976257% |
| 131 | 14.601520% |
| 132 | 14.498584% |
| 133 | 14.506574% |
| 134 | 14.604898% |
| 135 | 15.126217% |
| 136 | 15.703966% |
| 137 | 15.582027% |
| 138 | 30.394184% |
| 139 | 30.698415% |
| 140 | 29.507675% |
| 141 | 29.547662% |
| 142 | 14.759607% |
| 143 | 15.126630% |
| 144 | 14.936862% |
| 145 | 15.506388% |
| 146 | 44.941305% |
| 147 | 44.715019% |
| 148 | 44.652710% |
| 149 | 45.217895% |
| 150 | 29.949451% |
| 151 | 30.268909% |
| 152 | 30.429398% |
| 153 | 29.742630% |
| 154 | 29.877868% |
| 155 | 100.000000% |
Act II - the Sunday swing
Fox reached the 12th tee one-over for the round, then made four birdies in the final six holes. He birdied 13 and 14, gave one back at 15, and birdied 16 to tie the lead again. After a par at 17, he made a 12-foot birdie on the 72nd hole to win outright. The championship's official report calls his rise from T52 after 36 holes the largest comeback by position in men's major history.
Sporting facts in this section are sourced to The Open's official final-round report.
The near-misses
If one of these names was on your slip, Sunday came close without delivering the trophy.
- Cameron Young closed with a 64 and finished alone in second at 9-under, one stroke short after a bogey on 18.
- Sam Burns began Sunday with the lead and finished third at 8-under after a final-round 72.
- Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood shared fourth at 7-under. Both finished inside the top five, but neither found the closing answer Fox did.
Act III - read vs. reality
The comparison below is deliberately narrow: the exact six rows readers saw before the first tee, joined to verified finishes. It is not a reconstructed full-field board.
Board vs reality · the board we published before the first tee · model estimates
Scheffler and Fleetwood gave the displayed board two T4 finishes. But the published Read did not find the champion: Ryan Fox was not among those six displayed names. We do not have an authenticated pre-event probability or rank for Fox, so none is inferred here.
| Player | Win | Top 5 | Top 10 | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | 10.3% | 31.0% | 45.4% | T4 |
| Rory McIlroy | 7.9% | 25.3% | 38.3% | T40 |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 4.8% | 19.2% | 31.8% | T4 |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | 4.6% | 18.5% | 31.1% | missed the cut |
| Jon Rahm | 4.3% | 16.8% | 28.1% | T46 |
| Xander Schauffele | 3.4% | 13.7% | 23.9% | T18 |
What's next
The six-name board found two top-five contenders and still missed the winner. That is the Arc: show the live move, credit what held up, and own what the published Read did not capture. Return to the Open Read or browse the next liveslip.ai golf analysis.
Upload your slip to watch each player's win probability move with the round.
Watch player probabilities liveProbabilities on liveslip.ai are model estimates, not advice. Live win probability tracks what is happening on the course, not payouts.
Source note: final results and round scores come from the verified final tournament record; the Sunday line is the complete captured 155-snapshot final-round series; sporting claims are checked against the official championship report. No missing pre-event value, full-field ranking, or live-series gap was reconstructed.
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