Knox overcomes heebie-jeebies to put broom handle
GETTING a small ball to disappear down a hole has been the bane of many a golfing life through the ages. The mighty Old Tom Morris, for instance, was so renowned for his putting woes, a letter sent back in ye olden times simply addressed “The Misser of Short Putts, Prestwick” was delivered straight to him by the postman.
The legacy of auld Tom’s scunnerations on the greens continues to afflict his countrymen to this day.
“My wife turned to me and said, ‘you’ve played professional golf for so long and you’re horrible at putting so please, try something different’,” said Scotsman Russell Knox with a wry smile of his better half Andrea’s no nonsense appraisal.
With his wife’s withering assessment ringing in his ears, Knox has taken drastic measures here at the Genesis Scottish Open.
“I used a broom handle putter for the first time in my life,” said Knox of the new golfing contraption in his bag.
A sturdy two-under 68 at The Renaissance provided a glimmer of hope for a man ranked a lowly 198th on the PGA Tour’s strokes-gained-in-putting stats. The use of said putter, however, initially gave him the kind of shuddering heebie-jeebies you would get if you were suddenly asked to take the controls of a plane that was heading for a crash landing.
“I was absolutely terrified on the first hole,” Knox said. “I only started messing around with it three days before I left for here. The best putt of my life was the three-footer for par on the first hole. If that didn’t go in, we were in for a long day.
“I was 95 per cent sure I was going to chicken out of using it. Even when I left in the morning, I said to Andrea, ‘there is a chance I could be back before my tee time’.
“I just made up my own version. It started at 47 inches long but it felt horrendous so I cut it down to 45 inches and it’s down to 40 inches now. I’d never tried one ever.
“Before my round, I was thinking, ‘are you really going to do this at a Scottish Open?’ I was nervous about people looking at me and saying, ‘that
Knox guy, he’s got a weird putter’.”
Listening to Knox’s description of his putter, you would think the 37-year-old had cobbled together something akin to Frankenstein’s monster. His 68, though, was pretty pleasing on the eye.
“I’d give myself a B plus today,” he said of his first round report card. “I missed a few, of course, but made a few too. And my long putting, which I was terribly worried about, was terrific.”
Not long after Knox and his putter had toddled off, Bearsden’s Ewen Ferguson bounded in with a 67 to lead the Scottish challenge on a day when Richie Ramsay was forced to withdraw with an illness and Robert MacIntyre had to settle for a two-over 72
A fine up-and-down from treacherous territory on his last hole put the tin lid on a decent day’s work for the 26-yearold who won his first DP World Tour title in Qatar this season.
“I was in grass up to my knees thinking ‘oh no’,” Ferguson said. “I looked at the leaderboard and saw I was on the same score as Spieth so I splashed it out to about eight feet and holed the putt. I wanted to stay on the same score as Spieth.”
That par ensured the young Scot actually finished a shot ahead of Spieth. And a few more illustrious names too.