Russell Knox insisted ‘Please don’t tell my caddy’ after revealing he switched the shafts in his clubs ahead of teeing-up in making his first appearance at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland.

Scotland’s top-ranked player is strangely making his debut in the $5m event that was first contested in 2001 and won by fellow Scot Paul Lawrie.

Knox was drawn to play the famed Old Course at St. Andrews and asked ahead of the pro-am of the three host courses which course did he think he would find the hardest.

His answer was strangely the Old Course and where Knox had competed as a pro once prior and that was in posting rounds of 72 and 74 to miss the halfway cut in the 2015 Open.

Russell Knox and caddy David Clark lining-up a putt durnig a round of 66 on day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links (Photo – European Tour/Getty)

However, the affable Scot seemed to make a mockery of that statement in grabbing eight birdies in a very impressive six-under par 66 using new irons but then also, and unbeknown to caddy David Clark that he’d switched the shafts that the former caddy to Masters winning Adam Scott was not aware.

“It is a brand new set. It is the same make. Srixon 785s,” he said.

“Am I going to tell you this? Don’t tell my caddie but I switched shafts this week but I didn’t let him know. It was a big secret because I didn’t want him to freak out.

“I went from an X100 to an S300 which is a little softer. He doesn’t know so don’t tell him. Hopefully he doesn’t read the papers (smiling)

“He won’t care if I shoot 66, I promise you that”.

Knox has competed in eight prior Tour events on ‘home’ soil but is yet to taste success but the Scot showed today real grinding qualities which would suggest he could be headed for a fourth Tour victory.

“We all have to try and grind out a score when we can as very seldom do you play excellent golf for four rounds,” Knox said.

“There is always that one round you have to try to get through and get it around in even par.  It will come. Today was great and hopefully I will just shoot four 66s and sail off into the sunset but we all know it is never like that.”

And after his round Knox confirmed he will next week play his first event on the new 2019/20 PGA Tour season and that will be at the $7m Shriners Hospital for Children Open in Las Vegas.

“I just signed up and I feel something good is going to happen, so that’s why I am going to play in Vegas,” he said.

“I feel great over the ball and seeing a lot of good stuff recently.  I don’t want to just go home and sit on the couch.

“I feel like I’m at the stage where it is just going to miraculously happen. I have to keep fighting, playing and shooting good scores like this.

“It is like a snowball, you roll it and a little ball gets bigger pretty quickly”

And it prompted Knox to be asked what was the rest of his schedule in the weeks leading up to the Christmas break.

“I didn’t qualify for the PGA Tour events in Japan or Korea so I will have those two weeks off,” he said.  “I feel good. If I do well this week I know it will take a lot out of me.

“I will go play Vegas and maybe Houston. Depending on how I do this week will maybe affect if I play more on the European Tour.”