Two-time winner Russell Knox battling to retain PGA Tour card

Russell Knox pictured during the pro am prior to the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda. Pictured: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images.

For the first time in a decade, the Fall Series didn’t signal the start of a new wraparound season as the circuit reverted to a calendar year campaign. Instead, the players in the top 125 at the end of a series of autumn events will earn full status for next season.

With only this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship and next week’s The RSA Classic in Georgia to come in the points battle, four-time tour winner Martin Laird currently sits 113th but compatriot Knox is 143rd.

It means the 38-year-old needs to dig deep to hang on to his card, which he’s held since 2012, winning the HSBC-WGC Champions in China in 2015 before adding the Travelers Championship in Connecticut the following year.

Knox will be heartened heading into this week’s event by the fact he’s made the cut in all four editions of the Bermuda Championship.

Meanwhile, Calum Hill and Richie Ramsay head into this week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa needing to jump up the Race to Dubai Rankings to get into next week’s season-ening DP World Tour Championship.

With the top 50 beng the provisional cut-off for the $10m event in Dubai, Hill sits 51st and Ramsay 54th as they bid to make the season finale.

Bob MacIntyre (eighth), Grant Forrest (36th) Ewen Ferguson (42nd) and Connor Syme (44th) are also in the field at Sun City, where Ryder Cup hero Tommy Fleetwood is bidding to land a third straight title triumph.