Thomas Pieters has always had an air of mystery about him that’s been hard to describe. Perhaps it’s the black ensemble that he arrived on tour wearing or the fact that he typically likes to avoid the limelight which makes it harder to gauge his type of personality. Amidst all of this intrigue, however, is a golfer with an undeniable X factor who now looks set to go as close as he ever will at Augusta National in April.
It should also be mentioned that winning breeds confidence and the small bit we do know about Pieters indicates that he is a golfer who thrives on it. Of course, the lanky Belgian would be in good company in this respect as most professional golfers return better results when their tails are up but Pieters has shown that he is able to convert that confidence into wins and not merely top tens. Indeed, as many as six European Tour wins by his thirtieth birthday would attest to that but then again this is the Masters, arguably the hardest event to win on the calendar so it’s going to be far from straightforward in Georgia.
In essence, if Thomas Pieters was to triumph at Augusta National then he would need a strong tailwind, a stroke or two of luck, and still be in the form that he is in now. It’s not impossible to imagine that all these things go his way but it would, of course, as he knows well, require a Herculean effort from the Belgian golfer to win his first major on the iconic layout of the Masters.