Knox thrilled with Tour card
Rookie from Scotland in Hawaii
After toiling for two years on mini-tours and with zero playing status for the Nationwide Tour at the start of his third professional season, Russell Knox seemed destined at the start of 2011 for another spell of pinching pennies and clinging to hope while roaming the USA looking for tee times.
Today, he’s rubbing shoulders with some of the game’s best players as he begins the 2012 season at the Sony Open in Hawaii as a PGA Tour member.
“If you had told me at the start of the year that I would have earned conditional status for the Nationwide Tour, I would have been over the moon,” said Knox, one of 24 rookies playing Waialae Country Club in Honolulu in the first full-field event of the season. “So to finish with a PGA Tour card, it’s a dream come true.”
While no two roads to the Tour are alike, Knox’s passage was, nonetheless, rather peculiar. It’s a journey that took root in the rugged environs of northern Scotland, a few stone’s throws from Loch Ness, where Knox was a better soccer player than he was a golfer.
Despite the limited number of sun-splashed, rainless days near the North Sea, Knox, 26, turned to the solitude of golf and the challenge of succeeding in a sport without the help of teammates.
His love of the game took him to Jacksonville University in 2003 — “It was the first university on the list, so we went there, was blown away by what I saw, so I stayed,” Knox said — and he honed his game there enough to turn professional. He won twice on the Hooters Tour but had to rely on Monday qualifying to get into Nationwide Tour events.
In April, Knox made it through at the Fresh Express Classic at TPC Stonebrae near San Francisco — and then tied for second in the tournament.
Three months to the day later, he won the Chiquita Classic near Cincinnati. Less than four months later, he had his Tour card after finishing 12th on the money list.
“I’ve always played with a little chip on my shoulder,” Knox said. “I always thought others didn’t think I was very good because of where I lived, way up north. So I always used that as a motivating factor. I was going to prove those people wrong, and I was going to work harder so I can prove them wrong.
“I picked golf because it’s all on me. I can’t blame anyone else. I can put all the praise and blame on me — and that motivated me to see how good I can become. . . .
“I knew I was capable of playing on the PGA Tour.”
Knox got a taste for the Tour last year when he qualified on a Monday for the Transitions Championship in March, but he missed the 36-hole cut. And he’s hit many a range ball near Vijay Singh at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
“We’ve chatted a little bit, and I love to watch him practice. But he’s a pretty intimidating guy,” Knox said. “Hopefully being around a star like that will help me on the first tee at Sony.
“I’ve practiced pretty hard the last couple of months, but I’m fed up with practicing. I’ve been thinking about that first tee for so long. I want to tee it up so bad. This is it.
“This is my chance to become famous.”