After two editions of a fun-and-games experiment in 2018 and 2019, Belgium returns to the DP World Tour schedule with a bonafide event headlined by its star golfer, Thomas Pieters, and World Cup-winning partner Thomas Detry. Along with a handful of others, these handsome youngsters will hope to continue a run of winners which underline that on the most global tour in golf, coming home can make all the difference – especially now that there are crowds to impress.
So far this season, four of the six DP World Tour events for which there was a strong home challenge have been won by one such player: Thriston Lawrence, Shaun Norris, Pablo Larrazabal, and Adri Arnaus. If you're happy to throw in residents of the country then that brings in Thorbjorn Olesen, based for a long time in London. Rewind to the end of last season and Arnaus lost to Rafa Cabrera Bello in Spain, while three of the four events of the post-Open 'UK Swing' went to players from the UK.
All of which is to say that Pieters and Detry in particular have to be respected ahead of the Soudal Open which, like the Belgian Knockout before it, will take place at Rinkven International. Of the two, Detry achieved more in that event and there's a chance Pieters has his eye off the ball again, while unlike Detry he's jetting off to play in the PGA Championship next week.
So is Bernd Wiesberger, who somehow came up one shot short of the places when selected at almost twice the price in Spain two weeks ago. I'm a little surprised he skipped the British Masters to play here instead, not least because of what lies ahead at Southern Hills, but he and Pieters are the best two players in this field. There is of course a reasonable chance that one of them is sipping champagne on the flight across to the United States.
Rinkven, however, might just throw another spanner in the works. This short par 71 comes in at under 7,000 yards and the biggest takeaway from the Knockout must surely be that accuracy was king. Adrian Otaegui, Benjamin Hebert, David Drysdale, Darius van Driel and various other short, straight hitters relished plotting their way around this tight, tree-lined, twisting course, and for the most part those who prefer a bit of space off the tee were left extremely frustrated.
Banking on a repeat looks the way to go, although there is just one nagging concern: I did wonder, perhaps, if the unique format of the Belgian Knockout encouraged defensive golf, first to get inside the top 32 of the stroke play portion over 36 holes, and then to edge through matches played over just nine holes of stroke play, where one big mistake with driver might spell disaster.
With four par-fours that could play under 350 yards, perhaps we'll see more aggression from those like Pieters, Sam Horsfield, Ryan Fox and Adrian Meronk who help populate the front of the betting. And, with two short par-fives there to be eaten alive, if any one of these does employ such tactics successfully, then the notion of Rinkven as a plotters' paradise may quickly unravel.
Nevertheless, when most information we have says accuracy trumps power, yet by dint of their being the better players we've a market which is power heavy at the top, the right thing to do is to take some chances. Hence I'll start us off with last week's runner-up, SEBASTIAN SODERBERG, who might just gain compensation.
The obvious negative is that Soderberg has just had a second DP World Tour win ripped from his grasp, having surely believed he'd done enough from the moment Richie Ramsay's approach to the last found water, to the moment Thorbjorn Olesen's eagle putt at the 17th found the hole.
Even then he was favourite to win the British Masters and a lot will depend on whether he can put that disappointment behind him. Ramsay for instance said he didn't sleep on Sunday having passed up a big opportunity to win on home soil, and it's easy to envisage him struggling to dust himself down and go again on Thursday morning.
Perez never really got himself into the conversation at the Belfry, nevertheless his ball-striking was superb once more as he finished 21st. That's twice in three starts since returning from the PGA Tour that he's been among the top five drivers and on all three occasions his irons have been strong, so the fundamentals of his game are back where they need to be.
Whereas Wiesberger's issues are on the greens, Perez has been struggling around them, but these are extremely flimsy statistics and it won't take much to find the necessary improvement. What's more, here at a short, considerably easier course, if his long-game does fire then he should be hitting far more greens than was the case last week, which reduces the likelihood of his short-game proving costly.
Hansen is out of form on the face of it, with finishes of 49-MC-MC since the DP World Tour returned from its latest mini-break, but his approach play has taken significant steps forward throughout each of these starts and the same goes for his driving.
We saw this quality long-game propel him towards an unlikely weekend tee-time at the Belfry only for Hansen to bogey the 18th and miss on the number, but as with Perez his issues around the green are far less likely to be a problem here in Belgium providing he takes another step forward in other departments.
Returning to those correlating courses, he's been seventh and 20th in the last two editions of the BMW PGA Championship and went MC-5-5-2 at Spey Valley on the Challenge Tour, and like Perez he played really well here in 2018 despite being a Challenge Tour member at the time.
Back then he bumped into a flying Colsaerts, who had won two matches already that day and played beautifully to beat Hansen, so it's good form and he's since completed the graduation to this level. Indeed, with wins in 2020 and 2021 he's one of the more decorated players away from the favourites and I don't mind chancing him at 50/1 and upwards after compatriot Olesen won at the weekend.
Luiten lost to Hansen in the knockout stages here four years ago so he's got some course experience to call upon, and it certainly looks his type of track. Twice a winner in the Netherlands, he's also scored at Celtic Manor and Diamond Country Club, two tricky parkland courses, and all six of his wins at this level have come in the scoring range I expect we'll see this week.
It's four years since the last of them and he's not been much of a threat since blowing a good chance to win when the DP World Tour returned in Austria two summers ago, but there have been signs of improvement lately – hence his inclusion in an eye-catchers piece written in February that produced its first winner in Olesen.
Last week's British Masters might just prove the best guide of all based on the 2019 leaderboard here, which saw Soderberg, Justin Walters and eventual winner Migliozzi all figure in the top dozen. Each of them has since finished runner-up at the Brabazon.
Syme's third place there added to a series of similar efforts on parkland courses, most notably in Austria where he's been second and fourth in two starts at Diamond. Throw in a run of 3-8-18 at Celtic Manor, third at Karen and eighth at Valderrama, and he has the sort of profile I'm looking for as an accurate driver with a good short-game, somewhat in the mould of an Otaegui albeit as yet unproven when it comes to winning.
Pepperell seems in a good place and I like both his form at Wentworth (two top-10s) and in the KLM Open next door in the Netherlands, where he boasts four top-sixes from just six appearances. Any course which allows players to ditch driver is likely to suit this brilliant iron player and he was actually solid off the tee last week anyway, another indication that he's close to putting everything together.
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