Russell Knox reckons he always wanted to be a superstar and he will go a long way to achieving European Tour history in capturing this week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
Scotland’s top-ranked golfer features in a grandstand high snap of the current WGC – HSBC Champions winner at the back at the 18th hole grandstand at Tour HQ.
Knox, unlike many of his European-born PGA Tour colleagues such as Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia, has elected to tee-up looking also to break into the top-20 on the World Rankings and in the process move among those already in the line-up to qualify automatically for the Ryder Cup.
Scotland’s Russell Knox warms to the thought of seeing a huge picture of himself at the back of the grandstand at the 18th hole at Wentworth
He’s currently ranked 23rd in the world, 17th on the European Ryder Cup ‘World’ points list and first reserve for the GB Olympic Men’s Golf Team.
Knox said: “When I was in Ireland last week there was a banner with my picture on it and I kind of joked about that with my wife, so she took a picture of me standing next to a larger version here at Wentworth.
“I mean this is what I always wanted. You have to sit back at night and think, hey, I want to be a superstar.
“You have to be ready for it, and I’ve got the opportunity to play on the PGA Tour, and out here on The European Tour and tournaments like the Masters so I have to see myself winning them, and winning lots of them.
“And in order to do that, there’s going to be pictures of you. People are going to want to watch you. You’re going to have to deal with stuff like this.
“But his is what I always wanted and that’s dreaming of being a star, and hopefully one day I will be.”
Knox took a huge step last week at the K. Club in making his Ryder Cup debut, and with McIlroy the eventual new Irish Open revealing to earlier this week the Scot certainly has ‘the bottle’ to make the Hazeltine Team after finishing tied second behind the four-time Major winner.
And Knox’s confidence to earn a first European Ryder Cup cap was bolstered a fortnight ago at the Players Championship when invited by Darren Clarke to join a group of possible[B1] [B2] Hazeltine qualifiers.
He said: “I thought that was extremely nice. Just of all of us potential players, I mean, some of them, like Danny Willett, for example, he’s definitely going to be on the team. There was a few people there that are definitely going to be there.
“There was also a few that won’t make the team but it was nice to share a meal, and he told us some good stories in the past to just kind of inspire us.
“Darren showed us a picture of what the bag is going to look like and just said, imagine your name on that bag. So I’ve thought about that every day since he told me that.
“It’s really kind of motivated me to make this team. So I look forward to hopefully playing well from now on.
“I don’t know Darren that well the week he won his Open (2011) I won my first tournament on the Web.com Tour.
“I found out on the 8th hole that he had won, and kind of inspired me on I think to go on and win myself. It was kind of a useless fact (smiling).
Knox earned $US 99,000 for his maiden victory as a pro whereas this week he is staring at a £STG 637,341 first prize cheque.
