Staff WriterNicolas Colsaerts will step onto familiar Belgian turf this week with a golf bag, a lifetime of memories, and the awkward little burden of trying not to become emotional before the first tee shot has even landed.
The 43-year-old is set to play his final DP World Tour event at the 2026 Soudal Open, bringing down the curtain at Rinkven International Golf Club on a professional career spanning 26 years and more than 500 DP World Tour appearances.
That is not so much a career as a fully stocked archive.
Three DP World Tour victories. A Ryder Cup appearance forever linked to the 2012 Miracle at Medinah. More air miles than a tired suitcase. And, perhaps most importantly, a trail blazed for Belgian golfers who once looked at elite professional golf as something that happened somewhere else.
This week, it comes home.
A Belgian Goodbye With Proper Weight Behind It
Colsaerts had originally planned to retire at the end of last season, but there is neatness in this ending. Golf, a game that usually takes great pleasure in denying neatness, has offered him a final walk at his national open, on a course he first played as a teenager.
Rinkven International Golf Club is not just a venue this week. It is memory with tee markers.
For Colsaerts, the appeal is not merely ceremonial. It is family, friends, old faces, old fairways and that particular home-country feeling that can make even the most seasoned professional feel like a junior again.
Nicolas Colsaerts: “It’s super special. I don’t live at home any more; you know, my home is somewhere else, so every time I come back, it’s always a special feeling, seeing faces that you know really well, or even from a long, long time. They’ve done a really good job with this tournament in the last couple of years. I’m extremely grateful to have my face everywhere, in hospitality and everything, for this last dance. I’m really happy to be here.
“It’s down to not forgetting where you come from. The first time I played this golf course, I was, like, 15, 16 years old, and to come now, at 43 and playing my last European Tour event on the very same course, is really cool. It’s not about a big stage, small stage – it’s who you play in front of and what it means to you.
Not having a chance to play a Belgian Open throughout my career, because there wasn’t any – they were the first events that I went to watch when I was eight, nine years old, so they’re still very fresh in my mind. It’s such an unbelievable opportunity to do this at home, and close this chapter, and to do it in front of people I’ve known really well for so long, is really cool.
“It’s extremely important. When you’re a young golfer, and you get a taste of it, you know, the same way that when you’re eight, nine, 10 years old, you go to the first pro event, and you see the big boys play, and you want to become that. When you’re an amateur teeing it up in your first Soudal Open, it gives you an indication of where you are, and you kind of feel like you’re touching your gods a little bit. It’s extremely inspiring, and I hope that this tournament will have a bright, bright future.”
More Than A Farewell Lap
It would be easy to frame the Soudal Open purely around Colsaerts’ final bow. Tempting, too. Golf loves a goodbye almost as much as it loves a rules argument.
But the 58th edition of Belgium’s national open has more going on than one emotional storyline.
Thomas Detry returns to home soil for the first time since 2023, carrying with him the extra wattage of history after becoming the first Belgian to win on the PGA TOUR last year. For Belgian golf, that matters. Colsaerts helped widen the road. Detry is now driving down it with the headlights on.
The target for Detry is simple enough to say and devilishly hard to do: win his national open.
Thomas Detry: “I’m really excited to be here this week, to be honest. It’s been three years that I haven’t been playing here, and I really don’t spend that much time in Belgium anymore, so it’s delightful to be back here. It looks like it’s going to be another great week, 28 degrees over the weekend, maybe 30. So, I’m really, really happy to be here. There are some familiar faces, the course looks brilliant, it’s had some good grass growth, as well. I’m really happy to be here and looking forward to seeing some heavy crowds over the weekend.
“I think Soudal has done an amazing job at getting this tournament running again. We used to have a Belgian Open, I remember, at least, 25, 30 years ago. I remember when I was four, five years old, walking around on a golf course by the coast. There used to be a big tournament there, so it’s nice to have this tournament back up and running again. It’s improved a lot over the years, I remember the first edition a couple of years ago, and when I see what the fan village looks like now, and also around the 18th green, it’s all looking very good, and they’ve done an amazing job. This tournament has become a name as well, so more and more people hear about it, more and more people want to come here for the week and see some good Belgian players, and global players, as well, play. So it’s really looking good, and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of people.
“For any player, winning their national open is definitely on the bucket list. And for me, it’s one of them. We are one of the lucky ones that actually are able to play tournaments in their own country, and being able to put that on my CV would be incredible, so it’s definitely my goal to win this week.
Detry Carries The Present, Colsaerts Carries The Past
The beauty of this week is the generational handover hiding in plain sight.
Colsaerts arrives as the figure who gave Belgian golf a broader imagination. Detry arrives as the player trying to turn that imagination into trophies. One is closing a chapter. The other is trying to write a rather noisy paragraph of his own.
That is not sentimental fluff. It is sporting context.
National opens matter because they root elite golf in place. They give young players a glimpse of the standard. They give crowds someone to claim. They give a country a stake in a global game that can, at times, feel like a travelling circus with nicer shoes.
The Soudal Open, revived in 2022, now sits as the second tournament of the DP World Tour’s European Swing. This year’s event carries a total prize fund of US$2.75 million and 3,500 Race to Dubai points, which should be enough to sharpen the mind of anyone tempted to get carried away by the poetry.
Premlall And Pepperell Add Bite To The Week
The Belgian storyline is compelling, but it will not hit a wedge shot for anyone.
Yurav Premlall arrives in Antwerp in terrific form after a staggering 14-shot victory at the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship a fortnight ago. The 22-year-old South African leads the European Swing Rankings and has the chance to claim a second DP World Tour title.
That is a rather inconvenient detail for anyone hoping the week might simply arrange itself into a Belgian coronation.
England’s Eddie Pepperell also has his own milestone to mark, with the Soudal Open set to be his 300th DP World Tour event. Pepperell has long been one of golf’s more interesting thinkers, which is to say he can usually be relied upon to provide more than “I just took it one shot at a time” and the vacant grin of a man being held hostage by media training.
A Tournament With Old Bones And New Energy
Belgium’s national open dates back to 1910, which gives it the kind of history modern tournaments would happily buy in bulk if they could.
Its roll of honour includes five-time champion Flory van Donck, 11-time Major Champion Walter Hagen and Sir Henry Cotton, whose name now sits on the DP World Tour’s Rookie of the Year Award.
The event joined the DP World Tour schedule in 1978 and returned as the Soudal Open in 2022. That comeback has given Belgian golf a home-stage event again, not merely for established professionals, but for the next wave of players who need to see the game up close before believing they belong in it.
That is the quiet force behind this week.
Colsaerts understands it because he once stood on the other side of the ropes. Detry understands it because he now walks inside them. The crowd will understand it because sport, at its best, is not just about who wins on Sunday. It is about who remembers being there.
One Last Walk At Rinkven
There will be golf to play, of course. Leaderboards do not pause for sentiment, and scorecards are famously indifferent to personal narrative.
But Nicolas Colsaerts’ final DP World Tour appearance gives the 2026 Soudal Open its emotional spine. Antwerp will not just be watching a player retire. It will be saluting a Belgian golfer who helped make the professional game feel a little closer to home.
And if he happens to find one last flicker of Medinah magic along the way, well, nobody in Belgium is likely to complain.
Golf rarely offers perfect endings. But every now and then, it at least books the right venue.
