Belgium’s most successful tour professional is about to play one final round at home. Nicolas Colsaerts — the 2012 Ryder Cup winner, three-time DP World Tour champion, and one of the most recognisable European players of the past two decades — has confirmed that this week’s Soudal Open at Rinkven International Golf Club in Antwerp will be his 505th and final DP World Tour start.
It is a fitting farewell. The Soudal Open is Belgium’s national open and the second event in the new six-tournament DP World Tour European Swing. Colsaerts, now better known to international audiences as a LIV Golf commentator, has built much of his career on this very tour, and the chance to wave goodbye on home soil — in front of the people who first watched him swing a club — is exactly the kind of send-off the European Tour rarely manages to choreograph.
What Happened
The DP World Tour confirmed Colsaerts’ farewell as part of its Soudal Open build-up, with the Belgian set to tee it up at Rinkven International alongside a field that includes LIV Golf’s Thomas Detry (also Belgian), Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, Josele Ballester, and Caleb Surratt. Norwegian Kristoffer Reitan, who won his maiden DP World Tour title at this event last year, is not in the field to defend.
Colsaerts’ 505 starts puts him in rarefied company. The DP World Tour does not publish an all-time appearances list as religiously as the PGA Tour does, but the number sits comfortably in the upper echelon of European Tour history — the equivalent of more than two decades of weekly travel, jet lag, and Tuesday pro-ams.
He turned professional in 2000, won his first DP World Tour title at the 2011 China Open, picked up the 2012 Volvo World Match Play Championship, and added the 2019 Open de France for his third. But it is his 2012 Ryder Cup performance at Medinah for which he will be remembered most widely — the wildcard pick whose hot putter on Friday morning helped set the tone for what would become one of European golf’s most improbable comebacks.
Why It Matters
Career milestones like this are easy to glaze over in a news week dominated by major-championship aftermath. They shouldn’t be. The DP World Tour — formerly the European Tour — is in the middle of a difficult reinvention, navigating LIV Golf’s pull on its star players, a complicated strategic alliance with the PGA Tour, and a schedule that increasingly leans on Asian and Middle Eastern stops to balance the books. Players like Colsaerts, who came up through European club golf and built their identity playing weekly in front of European crowds, are part of what the tour is trying not to lose.
He’s also a reminder of what longevity in this game actually looks like. 505 starts is not a number you reach by ranking inside the world’s top 10. It is the result of grinding through cuts, surviving status reshuffles, returning from form slumps, and keeping a body intact through 26 years of professional travel. That is a different kind of career achievement than a major title — and arguably a rarer one.
Colsaerts won’t fully disappear from professional golf — he has already established himself as one of LIV Golf’s most articulate broadcast voices and will continue in that role. But the active competitive chapter, the one that began as a teenage Belgian amateur chasing a tour card, closes this week.
The Soudal Open Context
For those tuning in primarily for the farewell, the tournament itself still matters. It’s the second event of the European Swing — a new six-week stretch of national opens that the DP World Tour has built into a focal point of its summer schedule. The Swing’s champion earns a $200,000 bonus, and the highest non-exempt finisher across the run secures a place at the Genesis Scottish Open in July.
The Swing follows last week’s Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship — where South Africa’s Yurav Premlall stunned the tour with a record 14-shot maiden victory — and continues with five consecutive national opens. It is the closest thing the DP World Tour now has to a genuine “home run,” and a Colsaerts farewell on the second week is exactly the kind of narrative the schedule was designed to surface.
What This Means For You
If you’ve been watching mainly American golf, this is a good week to flip over. The Soudal Open will be on the Golf Channel in the US (check local listings) and on Sky Sports in the UK, running Thursday through Sunday. Rinkven International’s North Course is a tight, tree-lined parkland venue — accuracy off the tee will matter more than length, which makes it the kind of strategic test that rewards an experienced player like Colsaerts even on a farewell week.
If you’re a course-strategy student, Rinkven’s narrow fairways and severe doglegs are an instructive watch. You’ll see top pros routinely take iron off the tee — a useful reminder that the bombs-away approach that wins on resort courses doesn’t translate everywhere. This is the kind of golf course where good pre-shot decision-making and shot-shaping matter more than raw distance.
And if you’ve always been more of a Ryder Cup fan than a weekly-tour fan, this is a chance to revisit one of the more underappreciated heroes of the modern era. Colsaerts’ Friday performance at Medinah remains one of the rounds that defined what is now called the Miracle at Medinah — and it sits comfortably in our broader Ryder Cup history coverage. With Adare Manor hosting the 2027 Ryder Cup already confirmed, a quick refresher on the architects of past European wins is well-timed.
The Wider DP World Tour Picture
Colsaerts’ farewell lands in the middle of a busier-than-usual news week for the tour. Jon Rahm has been steadily rebuilding his DP World Tour status after settling outstanding fines, locking in his 2027 Ryder Cup eligibility. Adam Scott qualified for his 100th consecutive major. Aaron Rai’s surprise PGA Championship victory pushed him to a career-high 15th in the world.
And the Kolon Korean Open — running concurrently on the Asian Tour with a spot in the Open at the line — saw its prize fund quietly cut by 30% on Monday of tournament week, after sponsorship that had been billed as LIV-backed reportedly fell through. That is the messier, business side of professional golf in 2026 — and the side that makes a clean, sentimental farewell at a home open feel like a small mercy.
Key Takeaways
- Nicolas Colsaerts will play his 505th and final DP World Tour start at this week’s Soudal Open at Rinkven International in Antwerp.
- The 2012 Ryder Cup winner and three-time DP World Tour champion will continue in his broadcast role with LIV Golf after stepping away from competition.
- The Soudal Open is the second event in the DP World Tour’s new six-week European Swing, with a $200,000 bonus for the Swing’s champion.
- Thomas Detry headlines a strong field that includes LIV regulars Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, Josele Ballester and Caleb Surratt.
- It’s a rare planned send-off for a home-grown European Tour stalwart — a reminder that career longevity is its own form of greatness.
Sources: DP World Tour official news (europeantour.com); Golf Monthly “This Week In Golf” round-up, 19 May 2026.
