For the third straight time since golf returned to the Summer Olympics, Ex-Illini golfers will wear the Belgium colors in the men’s competition.

Matt Stevens, IlliniGuys Staff Writer

August 1, 2024

Mike Small can still remember the moment his program’s historic run of Belgian talent began nearly 15 years ago.

After what he stated felt like “two feet of snow on the ground” in the winter of 2009, Mike Small was in Champaign, Illinois to greet Thomas Pieters after the prospect traveled the estimated 4,257 miles for his official campus recruiting visit.

The recruitment of Pieters included Small being one of the few college coaches to visit with the parents of the Belgian player while scouting him play in a tournament at what was then called The Doral Country Club in Florida.

“That was nearly 15 years ago and even in 2024, I’m still an old school type of recruiter as a coach,” Small said. “I think I was the only coach who spent time talking with his parents on that day because I wanted to still make sure how committed everybody around (Pieters) was about coming to America for college and everything that meant. We already knew he had world class talent, but I had to know if his makeup was right for our program.”

Illinois won the recruiting battle for the 6-foot-5 Pieters, a European player with obvious physical upside but not one of the world’s best amateur players as a teenager, over Texas and Southern California to suddenly open up a recruiting window to a program looking to find worldwide answers to an elusive Division I national championship.

“And he still came here after it being that cold and with all that snow,” Small said. “We were coming off a season where ranked No. 5 in the nation. If we’re not ranked that high, I don’t believe Illinois is in the mix for Thomas Pieters. That (recruitment) was the personification of realizing players don’t come to Illinois for the weather, don’t come here because we make it easy to get enrolled and don’t come here for the campus. They come to Champaign, Illinois because they believe our program can make them better players, period.”

Pieters’ decision to attend Illinois resulted in a three-year college golf career that produced medalist honors in the 2012 NCAA Division I Championship, individual medalist honors at the 2013 Big Ten Conference Championships and a team runner-up finish in the 2013 NCAA Championships.

All of these results were simply proof that Pieters had all the ability and competitiveness necessary to possibly succeed at the next level of professional golf once he left Champaign-Urbana.

“(Pieters) was a player where I say this all the time, but his best golf was always going to be ahead of him after he left Illinois,” Small said.

Following six European Tour victories, four Top 10 finishes in major championships and a Ryder Cup appearance in 2016, Pieters’ career clearly met expectations after leaving college golf behind. However, a few months before being a captain's pick by European captain Darren Clarke for the 2016 Ryder Cup, Pieters made it into the history books as the first Belgian player to qualify for the Summer Olympics after golf was reinstated into the Olympic Games following a 96-year absence from 1920 to 2016.

In the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Pieters finished fourth - just four strokes away from being on the medal podium and seven shots behind gold medal winner Justin Rose.

However, it’s a recruitment that started nearly a decade and a half ago that has allowed the men’s golf program at the University of Illinois to shine in each of the last three Summer Olympics.

In a classic domino effect, Pieters’ arrival was followed by Belgian amateur Thomas Detry feeling comfortable with considering and eventually signing with Illinois in 2012. Detry, who was selected to the Junior Ryder Cup team, was one of the world’s best junior players before selecting the Illini as his college destination. The 31-year-old, who is currently ranked 57th in the official world golf rankings, will tee it up for his home country for the second straight Olympic Games after making his debut in 2020 alongside Peters in Japan. Detry, who already two Top 15 finishes in majors this season (a T4th at the PGA Championship and a T15 at the United States Open) finished tied for 22nd four years ago in Japan but might be playing his best golf in the biggest events, which now for professional players does include the Olympic Games.

“The Belgian people and athletes are a prideful bunch, and they have a lot of pride in wearing that red, yellow and black while representing their country on the world stage,” Small said. “Both Pieters and Detry would paint their golf ball in markers in competitions while at Illinois with the Belgian flag. Peters would practice putts as a kid envisioning that it would be a putt in the Ryder Cup while most American players envision putts to win The Masters or U.S. Open.”

This week, while at Le Golf National in Paris, Detry will be joined by PGA Tour rookie and former Illini star Adrien Dumont de Chassart as the two players representing Belgium. Dumont de Chassart got the Olympic bid after Pieters saw his world ranking dip by 240 spots since his decision in Feb. 2023 to join the LIV Tour. Because the newly formed LIV Tour events are only 54 holes with no cut, they are not recognized as counting events for world ranking points and therefore, while at 213th in the world, the 24-year-old Dumont de Chassart overtook his Belgium golf idol in the standings.

After turning professional in June 2023 and being named the Korn Ferry Tour Rookie of the Year for the 2023 season, Dumont de Chassart has found the typical struggles in 2024 as a PGA Tour rookie after missing 11 of 20 cuts this season. However, a worldwide event at a venue that hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018, might just be what Dumont de Chassart needs as a confidence booster as he enters the fall portion of the PGA Tour schedule.

The first round of the 72-hole Olympic Games event for the men’s competition is set to begin this morning with Dumont de Chassart set to tee off at 3:22 a.m. CST, 11 minutes after a group that includes world No. 1 player Scottie Scheffler and world No. 3 player Rory McIlroy begin their first-round action. Detry will tee off his first round at 4:33 a.m. CST.