Rookie Colsaerts thanks granny for the gift of golf

If it were not for his grandmother, European Ryder Cup rookie Nicolas Colsaerts would not be teeing up this week at Medinah.

Colsaerts also has his father and a professor to the Belgium Royal Family to thank for his rise to the dizzy heights of the Ryder Cup.

The only rookie in the European team has come a long way since he first stepped on to a nine-hole golf course in the middle of a Brussels horse race track with clubs presented to him by his grandmother.

The Brussels Golf Club is located at Boitsfort, to the south-east of the Belgium capital and just a short distance from the family home.

Colsaerts was just six and couldn’t wait to try out the 3-wood, 7-iron and putter before later adding a 5-iron, 8-iron and 9-iron to the no-name set he carried around in a blue Prosimmon bag.

“I was like a kid in a candy store as I just loved those first clubs my grandmother gave me,” he said.

“My favourite club was the 7-iron and I virtually wore that club out, and ever since I’ve always been a 7-iron guy even still now today.

“Seven has always been my lucky number so I’m an odd numbered guy.”

Golf soon began to consume Colsaerts and after starting with a handicap of 36 he got down to 12 at 12 years of age and was playing off plus 2 by the time he turned 14.

When Colsaerts turned pro in 2000 he was off plus 5.

“My handicap just went down, down, down and funny as it may sound but I still have those clubs and also the first full set I had,” he said.

“But when you look at the clubs the Tour pros get access to now, it amazes me how heavy and stiff they are.”

The Brussels Golf Club plays to a par 31, with four par-fours and five par-threes, and off the back tees measures 2,040 yards.

Colsaerts is currently the longest driver on the European Tour averaging 289-yards off the tee, and if he went back to the club and launched his now infamous booming drives he would get around the course in just seven strokes.

He’s also an only child who comes from a family rich in sport, however none were consumed with golf like the young Nicolas.

“I used have a wall in my bedroom where I would cut stuff out of magazines but no posters of players,” he said.

“I would stick up pictures of golf holes, pictures of golf balls and stuff like that. My mum and dad really did have a choice.

“I also used to spend hours and hours downstairs, while my mum and dad were asleep upstairs, watching tapes of golf.

“There was also this French TV show on golf that would go to air 7am on Sunday mornings, and I’d love watching that.”

Colsaerts attended the private Brussels School run by the now late Professor Rudy Bogaerts, and that is where Muriel, last name unknown, was also a student.

“Attending the Brussels School is probably what changed my life as it was a school for about just 40 people, and this one guy conducting all the studies,” he said.

“His name was Rudy Bogaerts and he founded the school in the early ’70s, and he was professor to Prince Laurent of the Belgium Royal Family, and while he sadly passed away a couple of years ago, he really left an impression with me.

“I would never have travelled as easy as I have done since leaving that school without the help of that guy.

“I know his family really well as he has two sons, one David who now runs the school, but then I would love to go back there one day and tell the kids going there now just how much attending the school meant to me.

“Maybe after the Ryder Cup and all that is going on now, I might do just that.”

It was there at the Brussels School a girl named Muriel planted a kiss on Colsaerts. “I was just so busy with golf and never had a serious girlfriend but then there was this girl, Muriel,” he said smiling.

“She kissed me. I was 12 years and straight away I sort of had a crush for her.”

Colsaerts is just as popular with the women now but then he still doesn’t have a steady as golf remains his first and, for the up-coming last three days of September, his one consuming true love.