After 24 years on the DP World Tour and more than 500 starts, with a career that took him from a wildcard Ryder Cup debut to three European Tour titles, Nicolas Colsaerts decided he was done competing. He retired from professional golf at the end of 2024 and walked into a commentary role at LIV Golf. That was supposedly his next chapter. However, this week, he’s back on the course one last time in front of his home crowd in Belgium.
Colsaerts’ presence on the course is not a comeback or a second wind, but he will be teeing off one final time at the 2026 Soudal Open. The tournament will be running from May 21 to 24 at Rinkven International Golf Club in Schilde. This will be the 505th start of his career, and he is grateful for it.
“I’m incredibly grateful that the Soudal Open is giving me the chance to spend my final week as a professional golfer here in my home country. Belgium is my home; I’ve always tried to give a lot back to Belgium and Belgian golf. It makes sense to say goodbye here,” he said.
And for what it’s worth, the tournament has officially named Colsaerts’s presence as “Nico’s Last Dance,” as it is the only Belgian DPWT event on the calendar. This final bow holds significant importance for Belgian golf.
Colsaerts became the first Belgian to play in the Ryder Cup in 2012 and also the first to win a Ryder Cup point, earning it by defeating Tiger Woods at Medinah. He went on to win three times on the DP World Tour across his career and returned to the Ryder Cup setup in 2023 as a vice-captain.
Nicolas Colsaerts is making a return to the DP World Tour this week on home soil at the Soudal Open.
Colsaerts announced his retirement at the end of last year after 500+ DPWT starts. Has spent 2026 in the LIV Golf commentary booth.
— Josh Lees (@joshwlees) May 18, 2026
He announced his retirement after the 2025 season and jumped to LIV Golf as an on-course reporter in 2026. The move surprised people. Eddie Pepperell, a DP World Tour winner, noted on the Chipping Forecast podcast,
“I’ve spoken to Nicholas plenty of times about LIV, and he wasn’t its biggest fan. So that’s a huge turn of events.”
The broadcast role looked like a smart landing point after a long playing career until LIV’s financial foundation cracked. Saudi Arabia’s PIF is withdrawing LIV’s funding, and the league is trying to find new investors. It would not be wrong to say that as the day passes, the struggle increases. The confusion also extends to the broadcast team, as they also face the consequences.
For Colsaerts, this is not a crisis of his making, and he has said nothing publicly connecting the two. Whatever shape his broadcast career takes from here, the Soudal Open this week is a rare moment of tribute to the player who did so much for the country.
LIV Golf’s collapse might be affecting players and broadcasters alike
In the months leading up to PIF’s bombshell withdrawal announcement, LIV was still billing its broadcast team. Apart from Colsaerts, who had retired from the DP World Tour, fellow DP World Tour veteran Brett Rumford, a six-time winner on the circuit, also came aboard at the same time.
Additionally, Sky Sports pundit Dave Henni-Zuel, who had also spent nearly a decade covering golf for Sky and Golf TV, left to anchor LIV’s pre-show coverage ahead of the new season.
Even commentator David Feherty later admitted that he had been “in the dark” about the financial developments. Any future version of LIV Golf is expected to look different, likely smaller in scale, but no longer on the same salary structure that defined its early years.
The hires painted a picture of an operation in expansion mode. None of them could have known Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would confirm its exit from LIV just weeks into the season, leaving the future and many careers in uncertainty.
