Russell Knox to be honoured by Inverness Golf Club

Russell Knox is to be made an honorary member of Inverness Golf Club. Picture: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

The club’s management council agreed that the 30-year-old deserved the status after continuing his progress in the game by becoming the first Scot to win a World Golf Championship with his victory in the HSBC Champions in Shanghai last month.

“Russell has confirmed he is coming to the club before the Scottish Open to receive his award,” Gordon Fyfe, the  club’s recently-appointed new president, told members in a newsletter. “This is great news and an occasion to look forward to.”

It will be a feeling of déjà vu when he arrives back for the Scottish Open next July, having paid a visit to Nairn Dunbar to receive the same honour there prior to this year’s event at  Gullane.

The new Scottish No 1 – he climbed another spot to 27th in the latest world rankings – is in South Africa this week to bring his 2015 campaign to an end with a debut appearance in the Nedbank Challenge.

It’s his first event as a European Tour member, having specifically joined the circuit so that he can be eligible for next year’s Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, and Knox will have two other contenders for Darren Clarke’s team – Englishman Andy Sullivan and Austrian Bernd Wiesberger – for company in tomorrow’s opening round at Sun City.

Elsewhere, two of Knox’s compatriots – Scott Jamieson and Paul Shields – have made the long journey to Queensland on the Gold Coast for the Australian PGA Championship which starts tomorrow.

The Thai-based Scot, Simon Yates, sets out in the Asian Tour’s Ho Tram Open tomorrow in Vietnam.