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Three Kiwis vie to make history at Royal Birkdale
Sport Nation •  July 8th, 2026 2:37 pm
Ryan Fox on the first tee in the 2018 Scottish Open | Photo: Photosport
The British Open lies only a couple weeks out, with the competition drawing large competition including a strong Kiwi front of three of own competing at Royal Birkdale.
Ryan Fox, Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori join the likes of Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and other big names in golf at the course competing for the Claret Jug.
Golf analyst Daniel Bieleski told Sport Nation Mornings, with all the Kiwi interest over there, they will all be looking to repeat what Sir Bob Charles did and take out an Open Championship when it tees off July 16.
Before then, the field gets into British Open mode by having the best of the DP World Tour and PGA Tour facing off at the Genesis Scottish Open.
Bieleski comments on this being a common occurrence for PGA Tour golfers, typically not being able to play on the types of golf courses that the United Kingdom dishes up for The Open Championship.
“They head over to Scotland, they get into the time zone, they get acclimatised to obviously what can be a pretty frigid climate,” Bieleski said.
Chris Gotterup coming off his recent victory at the John Deere Classic, is now playing to defend his Scottish Open title against a strong lineup of competitors from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour looking to fire ahead of the British Open.
Bieleski talked a couple weeks back about the announcement around the restructuring of the tour, with there possibly being more co-mingled events coming in the future.
“It does sound like there will be strengthening of those ties and even some sort of international series where we see more of these PGA tour players coming across,” Bieleski said.
Bieleski heads to the UK tomorrow to get more insight on what the course has to offer in Merseyside.
All TAB odds are current at the time of publishing - R18, please gamble responsibly.
For more, listen to the full interview below:
