Sunday at Royal Birkdale was the latter for this Kiwi writer.

Ryan Fox didn't arrive at the final round of the Open Championship as the obvious favourite in the slightest. There were bigger names and more fancied contenders.

Tommy Fleetwood carried a tremendous weight of an expectant home crowd, and the cheers that followed him around Royal Birkdale were deafening. However, tucked in behind the Lancashire lad was another soundtrack; one which travelled more than 18,000 kilometres to reach England's northwest coast.

Kiwi voices and the pride of the land of the long white cloud. You heard them everywhere.

They echoed through the dunes, spilled from grandstands and filtered between the trampled fescue. Every time Fox appeared, another chorus of New Zealand accents emerged from the galleries. Some had travelled across the world. Others were expats now living in Britain. It didn't matter. For one afternoon, it all sounded like a garden bar prior to an All Black’s Test. Fox felt the love, too.

"There were a lot of Kiwi accents in the crowd. There seem to be Kiwis everywhere, especially in the UK. You could definitely hear them loudly over all of this week, especially today," he said in his press conference.

Australians have long had a reputation for travelling well, but New Zealanders are every bit the same. Perhaps it's something about growing up so far from the centre of the sporting world, that when one of your own reaches a stage like this, you feel galvanised beyond belief, and you show up. And a portion of New Zealand’s 5 million did.

The final six holes felt like they unfolded in slow motion. When Fox found trouble, there was no panic. A bogey at the par-3 15th after finding the bunker and having to splash out backwards could easily have rattled anyone in their first real chance of contention at a major. The following hole, an electric birdie. On 17, he hit a tee shot that drifted into a fairway trap, which threatened to undo his momentum. He accepted it, took his medicine and kept walking. There was a calmness about him that never disappeared.

A birdie chance at the 17th slid agonisingly by, but even then, there was a sense of calm about the Aucklander.

Caddie Dean Smith and Fox celebrate a monumental achievement at Birkdale. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Then came the 18th. Under the greatest pressure of his career, Fox produced what looked like the most routine birdie of his life, on one of Birkdale’s toughest holes.

The putt tracked towards the middle of the hole from the moment it left the blade. As it disappeared into the cup, Royal Birkdale erupted.

Standing behind the 18th green, notebook forgotten somewhere under an arm, the journo hat long gone, the patriotism was well ignited, feeling nerves I hadn’t felt since that fateful 2019 Cricket World Cup Final at Lord's.

Alongside me was David Bieleski from Sport Nation New Zealand. We had met little more than 48 hours earlier. Yet, as that final putt dropped, two grown men instinctively embraced like lifelong mates, causing a slight scene in the media section of the grandstand. Sometimes sport does that.

For New Zealand, major champions don't come around very often, especially in the men’s game. They become part of a country's sporting identity.

Sir Bob Charles, in this very event in 1963 at Lytham; Michael Campbell, taming Tiger at Pinehurst in 2005; and Dame Lydia Ko, three-time major champion in the women’s game and long the benchmark for golf in New Zealand.

Fox has spent years building towards this moment. Becoming one of the most respected players on the DP World Tour, proving himself against the very best on the PGA Tour. However, major championships ask different questions, and on Sunday under the setting Southport sun, he answered every one of them.

The Claret Jug now belongs to New Zealand once more, and the history books will always remember Ryan Fox as the Champion Golfer of the Year in 2026.

However, those fortunate enough to walk beside those closing holes will remember something else. The voices, the silver ferns across chests and crests of hats.

The strangers becoming friends simply because they recognised the same accent. For a few unforgettable hours at Royal Birkdale, New Zealand felt remarkably close.

And when Ryan Fox hoisted the Claret Jug into the English sky, a little nation stood a lot taller.