British Open Playoff Format: What Happens If There Is a Tie in Sunday’s Final Round

The 2026 British Open is coming down to the wire and it’s looking like a playoff might be on the horizon as Cameron Young and Ryan Fox currently are tied for the lead.

So what happens if we need extra golf to decided a champion? Well, the British Open has a three-hole aggregate playoff that will see the players take on the par-5 14th, par-3 15th and par-4 18th. The player with the lowest total score over the three holes will win the Claret Jug.

Young had a brilliant final round as he fired a six-under 64 to grab the clubhouse lead. He has had to sit back and watch the action for a while because he went off a lot earlier than the final groups. He won the Players Championship last March, which is his biggest win to date. He hasn’t won a major championship yet.

Fox is a 39-year-old from New Zealand who plays on the PGA Tour. He has never finished in the top 10 at a major and his best finish this year on the PGA Tour is a T7 at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera. Fox is playing in the final group with Sam Burns at Royal Birkdale after firing an eight-under 62 on Saturday.

The last playoff at the British Open happened in 2015 when Zach Johnson defeated Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman at St. Andrews.

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