Given the tweaks, changes, revamps and facelifts that have been lavished on Wentworth’s West Course over the last year, plus the addition of music on the driving range and television hosts blethering on the first tee, they are certainly not preserving the status quo as far as the BMW PGA Championship is concerned.

As for preserving the real Status Quo? Well, with temperatures set to hit the 30s by the time the hardened rockers take to the stage as part of Saturday’s entertainment, the amount of water needed to keep veteran frontman Francis Rossi from shrivelling up may lead to a hosepipe ban in the wider Surrey area.

“I once had a Status Quo CD so I might look into going to see them at the weekend,” said Russell Knox ahead of his second appearance in the European Tour’s flagship event. Knox’s own status has taken a bit of a dunt this season. This time last year, the Scot arrived at the plush Wentworth estate having harried Rory McIlroy all the way in the Irish Open the weekend before while an image of him plastered on a 60-foot high banner draped from the grandstand on the 18th underlined his stature. Here in 2017, Knox is still trying to play himself out of what he calls “a little funk.” From 10 events this year, the Invernesian has missed the cut five times. In the last campaign, he missed just four cuts in 28 tournaments. While the aforementioned Rossi still rocks and rolls with age-defying gusto, Knox too is looking to turn back the clock as he embarks on a busy summer schedule.

“I just hadn’t been feeling like I needed to on the course,” said the 31-year-old. “I wasn’t enjoying myself as much as I should be out there. I just need to go out there and play like a kid again and have fun. I’m not on unbelievable form this year but it is in there somewhere. It just has to come out. I maybe just need to hole a 10-footer on the first hole and I’ll be off and running.”

This sense of downbeat frustration has led to the world No 34 making a change in personnel and he has arrived in this leafy, sun-soaked stockbroker belt with a different man on his bag. It’s not a new partnership, more a rekindling of an auld alliance. “His name is Johann Benson, he’s a good friend and he caddied for me four years ago,” added Knox. “I just felt I needed a little change and hopefully that will spark me into gear. I’m playing five of the next six weeks so it’s a chance to play myself into form. I won’t be playing the Irish Open but I will do the French and the Scottish before the Open.”

The £5 million worth of improvements to the West Course, with particular emphasis being placed on the much-maligned putting surfaces, have been greeted with widespread approval and Knox is relishing the challenge ahead. The fact the weather is more like what he is used to in his adopted home state of Florida has also helped his general state of mind. “It’s been a nice stroll these last couple of days,” he said as he absorbed the warming rays of that big fiery orb. “The greens are 100 times better than they used to be.

“It was compulsory that they made these changes. The fairway bunkers, for instance, were far too deep. You couldn’t reach the green, you were just hacking out. That’s no fun. Unless it’s links golf but this is not links golf. I still enjoyed playing the course last year but I’m going to enjoy it much more this time.

“Some of the changes are very subtle. That kind of tells you what a good job they have made of it because it looks like it should be that way.”

This week’s showpiece is the first of the European Tour’s newly-launched Rolex Series and boasts an improved prize fund of £5.4 million. Trying to compete with the riches that are routinely on offer on the PGA Tour in the US is akin to attempting to woo a Sultan with a handful of coppers and coins left over from a night in the local but Knox is more than happy to make the Atlantic crossing.

“This is a big event and it should be even bigger,” he said. “The US players should come over to this, this should be like The Players Championship. I don’t know what they need to do to attract more US players to come. It’d be nice if the guys came over but, at the same time, you’ve got an unbelievably strong European Tour field here so it’s going to take the same level of golf if you’re going to win.”