[PHOTOS: Christian Petersen]
In his post-match interview on CBS, after his first ever PGA Tour win at the WM Phoenix Open, Belgium’s Thomas Detry spoke at a rapid pace, the words flooding out of his mouth in unbroken torrents, punctuated here and there by the word “incredible”, which he uttered six times in the space of a minute. If you were watching closely over the previous five hours, the interview itself was somewhat incredible. Why? Because it was the first time all day he actually looked nervous.
Detry, the 32-year-old, started the day at 18-under, five shots ahead of his nearest competition, and if you were a fan hoping to see a duel between the likes of Jordan Spieth, Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas, you could be forgiven for harbouring a faint wish that an early meltdown might be in the cards for the Belgian whose previous claim to fame was making a playoff at the Scottish Open in 2021. It would have been a foolish hope; after shooting the best round of the entire field, he ended the day at 24-under, seven shots ahead of his nearest competition. It was a brilliant front-running tour de force, a second straight 65 that left the rest of the field in the dust, and, as he put it later, a true “statement” victory.
It’s a statement that comes with more than a few dividends. Along with the $US1.656 million and the PGA Tour exemptions, Detry will be playing in his first Masters in two months and won’t have to worry about the rest of the majors either. And when Luke Donald starts to construct his Ryder Cup team ahead of Bethpage later this year, his mind will surely wander to the man who prevailed in emphatic fashion in front of the most raucous fans the PGA Tour season has to offer.
Of course, that’s getting ahead of ourselves. With his best chance to win on Sunday, Detry started off modestly, shooting a one-under 34 on the front nine and giving the field the faintest of hope (at one point, his lead shrank to three shots). A birdie at the 11th gave him a bit more distance, but the true fireworks display began on 15, where he made the first of four straight birdies that would close out his round in style.
The most impressive of all came on 16, after emerging from the tunnel into the closest thing golf has to a gladiator arena. In that loud, stifling theatre, Detry watched Daniel Berger hit his 9-iron over the back of the green and made the decision to take something off his own 9, before hitting it to a foot. (“I must say, I need to thank Daniel for that one,” he quipped.)
“That shot he just hit was absurd in the situation,” Justin Thomas said, summing up the thoughts, you’d have to think, of the entire chase pack.
That birdie effectively brought the tournament to an end, but Detry had caught fire, and he carried the flame all the way to the 18th, where a final birdie sparked celebrations from his European colleagues waiting around the green:
Winner by SEVEN 🏆@TomDetry dominates @WMPhoenixOpen for his first career title. pic.twitter.com/4zoMDdTz9B
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 9, 2025
After a warm hug with playing partner Rasmus Hojgaard (following a more businesslike, not say brusque, handshake with Berger), Detry was assailed by Matt Wallace, who invaded the green armed with a bottle of champagne that he sprayed directly into Detry’s face, who, after clearing his eyes, took a celebratory chug for good measure.
“Everything goes so quickly that you don’t really have time to enjoy it,” Detry said, his serenity exhausted, the words now spilling out as fast as the brain could conjure them. “Luckily, my caddie was there to tell me to enjoy the moment… I’ve given myself plenty of chances in the past and never been able to conclude and being able to put a statement out like that was pretty incredibly, so I’m just over the moon, so happy.”
It might have been hard to notice, but after Detry, there was a leaderboard full of other players. A few that merit mention are Berger and Michael Kim, tied for second at 17-under, and Spieth, a shot behind them both, who made a truly Spiethian up-and-down from a lie inside a bush that forced him to hit left-handed. Thomas, tied for sixth, was the only player besides Detry to shoot 65 on Sunday, and to do it he needed a dramatic hole-out for eagle on the last hole. World No.1 Scheffler made noise early, with four birdies in his first six holes that briefly saw him in a tie for second but endured a nightmarish back-nine 41 to slip into a tie for 25th by day’s end.
All of it paled, of course, to Detry’s merciless display. It wasn’t even easy for most of his competitors to know what to say. Thomas called him “freakishly talented” and a “good dude”, Berger lamented that every time he made a birdie, his opponent made one back, and Michael Kim was forced to reach into the past to find another case of history repeating.
“His [University of] Illinois team beat our Cal team during the semi-finals in 2013,” Kim said. “Got me again, I guess.”
