ABU DHABI HSBC GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

January 23, 2022

Thomas Pieters

Yas Links

Press Conference

Q. Sixth win on the DP World Tour, your sixth win at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. What is it like to hear those words?

THOMAS PIETERS: It's fantastic. You know, a lot of hard work, and my first thought was just finally. Finally a really big event. I don't take anything away from the other wins, but this one definitely stands out for me.

Q. Two wins in your last three starts, a career resurgence, shall we say, what do you put that down to?

THOMAS PIETERS: The putting. Obviously that was kind of the missing link to my game for the past few years. And maybe just maturing a bit and taking the right decisions at the right times. I think I kind of showed that today by playing some boring golf coming in, but you have to be disciplined to make that decision.

Q. Seemed like all week you were in control of not only the golf game but your emotions, too, and you mentioned about having to have imagination around this course. Do you think you did that well this week?

THOMAS PIETERS: Yeah, obviously I didn't miss that many greens this week. But me and Adam just had a really good time out there. We were happy to start working again. Eight weeks off is a long time, and I mean, I'm happy for him as well.

Q. Talk about the round today. It was quite a slow start but the bunker shot on 3 and your tee shot on 8 were probably two of the highlights. Talk us through those.

THOMAS PIETERS: The bunker shot on 2 was even tougher than the one on 3. Just making two pars there is important. You can see Scott was just dropping shots but he wasn't hitting like really bad shots. It was really tough to let a few go.

And 8, yeah, it was an easy shot. You just had to hit a decent hot to the middle of the green and the slope would do the work for you. It was a good birdie, but all in all it was pretty boring out there for me.

Q. When you look at round two, the conditions were horrendous and really brutal to play in. Do you think only dropping two shots that day was a key part to the success this week?

THOMAS PIETERS: Yeah, definitely. I'm not sure if we had it right off to play first off on Friday, I mean, it was tough for everybody, but I kept my cool really well that day. It was really tough putting that day. The putter was going everywhere, to just hit greens and 2-putt everywhere was very important.

Q. Let's look ahead. Puts you into the top 35 in the world now, opens up lots of opportunities, the majors, the WGCs. How exciting is it to be Thomas Pieters at the moment?

THOMAS PIETERS: I don't know, pretty tired, so it's not like I'm going to party. Yeah, I can finally plan again. It's always been kind of like chasing this and chasing that, and obviously want to play in America a bit and Europe and combine it.

But this kind of solidifies me in the Top-50 and I can just make a good plan for the rest of the year and set myself up for hopefully another win.

Q. Talked about the legacy that you hope to leave. You said that you looked upon Nico as you were growing up and you hope to leave that same kind of legacy. How important is that not only for yourself but obviously for Belgian golf, too.

THOMAS PIETERS: Massive. Just before I came out, I was just practising with some kids back home, and for them to see that they can beat me in chipping competitions back home and I come out here and I win, it's important for them to see me and actually play against me. I try to do that a lot when I'm back home and hopefully it gives them some motivation.