Nothing beats a quiet, simple holiday.

You know, one of those largely uneventful sojourns that ends with you coming home with a slightly sun-burned neck, one or two harmless insect bites on your ankle and a fairly modest anecdote about ordering that local fish thing that you mistakenly thought was one thing but ended up being the other thing while the waiter tried to explain that it was actually this thing amid a bumbling episode of menu pointing, broken English, shrugging shoulders and smiling, awkward acceptance.

“Oh, how we laughed,” you tell your peers as you attempt to gloss over your doddering incompetence when it comes to ordering a bit of ruddy fish.

Read more: Nice and easy does it as Russell Knox plots route back to the top

Yes, it’s nice to get away. And it’s nice to come back to good news too. Shuffling grimly through passport control at an airport tends to have about as much joie de vivre as a herd of resigned cattle trudging towards an abattoir but this scribe’s mood was lifted as tales of Russell Knox’s victory in the Irish Open filtered through amid this limping procession.

Heading into two of the biggest weeks of the golfing season, it was a timely tonic. It was quite a financial fillip too for the Scot. After a share of second in the previous week’s French Open, Knox took his winnings to over £1 million in the space of seven days.

The manner of his victory, meanwhile, underlined the feisty, determined, competitive qualities that Knox possesses. A huge putt on the final green to get into the play-off was followed by another huge putt to win it. Knox’s thunderous, whooshing fist pump of triumph, meanwhile, could’ve whipped up a tsunami along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Having barged his way back into the world’s top 50 while romping up into contention for a Ryder Cup place, there are plenty of opportunities knocking for Knox. In this game, of course, you have to take them and the Inverness exile is not one for resting or laurels.

“This is a great start but this is not good enough, I need to hammer down,” he said in relation to his Ryder Cup push which he hopes will take him back to Le Golf National where he was joint runner-up just over a week ago.

Read more: Nice and easy does it as Russell Knox plots route back to the top

Already, some drooling observers have Knox in the team for Paris in September but then excitable, knee-jerk reaction tends to be par for the course these days.

It wasn’t that long ago that Knox was so far away from the Ryder Cup reckoning, he just about required a NASA space probe to explore the outer fringes of the qualifying list.

Things can change in a heartbeat, of course, and with a huge amount of points on offer in the peak season, this is the time to step up to the plate. Knox, with three worldwide wins to his name, continues to prove that he is the man for the big occasion. He thrives in those big moments and he strikes decisive blows when the questions are asked. In the fraught, cut-throat scene of the Ryder Cup frontline, those are necessary weapons in the armoury.

Now, he needs to make sure he keeps those weapons firing as the battle heats up. But golf, and its fickle nature, doesn’t come with a guarantee of anything. There are plenty of runners and riders for a place in Thomas Bjorn’s team and it will probably get to the point where the frenzied stampede will resemble something from an Attenborough documentary about life on the Serengeti Plain.

Knox’s omission from Darren Clarke’s European side in 2016 was a sore one to take. Only five players in the final line-up were higher than Knox on the world rankings at the time. There was plenty of hand-wringing, of course.

Read more: Nice and easy does it as Russell Knox plots route back to the top

Some roared that Clarke, who picked a badly out of sorts Lee Westwood as one of three wild cards, had simply strengthened the old boys’ network that exists in the European scene with US-based Knox very much an outsider peering in.

Others questioned Knox’s commitment when he opted out of two counting events during the run-in even when Clarke had personally asked him to play.

It’s all water under the bridge now. And there will be more of the wet stuff to pass under that brig’ between now and the September showpiece.

With his summer surge, though, Knox has thrust himself back into the spotlight. Let’s hope he can stay there ...