“It's not odd” – LIV Golf’s Thomas Pieters falls victim to slow play, unfazed by five-hour opening round at International Series England

The opening round at the International Series England event on the Asian Tour suffered a major delay on Monday. Notably, Thomas Pieters suffered as his round got stretched to five hours due to slow play. However, the LIV Golfer seemed unbothered by it.

Pieters, who teed off at 11.50 am local time, closed his round by 5 pm on Thursday. However, he carded a bogey-free 7-under 64 and seemed happy with the score. The 32-year-old Belgian golfer put circles on his scorecard at 1, 2, 14, 15 and 18 as he navigated the Longcross Course at Foxhills. He shared the lead with Richard T. Tee at the end of round 1.

Following the long round, the European golfer noted that the delay was “not odd” for him and was “normal” when there were 160 players on the field.

Speaking about his long round at the International Series England, Thomas Pieters said, as quoted by Golfmagic:

“It's normal when you have 160 players (in the field) on a short, tight golf course… It's not odd, it's fine.”

It is pertinent to note that the slow play at events has been a talking point for a while with several players including PGA Tour pros Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick lashing out at the same in the past. However, the breakaway Tour’s RangeGoats GC star doesn’t seem affected by the divisive conversation.

Pieters will continue his English event outing alongside Bland and Kokrak at 6.50 am on Friday.

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Thomas Pieters 'had no expectations' from the International Series England

Interestingly, Pieters noted that he “had no expectations” coming into the Asian Tour event. Having a mixed year with two top-10 finishes from 11 LIV Golf outings, the golfer stated that he was happy to get decent score from the round.

Thomas Pieters added while talking about his opening round:

“I had no expectations. The course kind of suits me, it's very similar to where we play the Belgian Open and the course, I practice at which is tight and narrow… So yeah, I really had no expectations this week but I know the area and I feel comfortable here.”

For the unversed, Pieters is one of 11 LIV Golf League regulars in the International Series England field this weekend. The golfers, including the likes of Richard Bland (Cleeks GC), Jason Kokrak (Smash GC), Branden Grace (Stingers GC) and Anirban Lahiri (Crushers GC), are competing at the $2,000,000 prize purse event. The champion golfer will bag the $360,000 winner’s paycheck.