Melbourne, November 25: Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry lifted the first title for Belgium after cruising to a three-shot victory while Korea emerged as the best-placed Asian team in tied-sixth position at the ISPS HANDA Melbourne World Cup of Golf on Sunday.

Childhood friends Pieters and Detry, who started the day with a five-shot advantage, continued their formidable partnership as they closed with a four-under-par 68 in the final round foursomes to cap a winning total of 23-under-par 265 at The Metropolitan Golf Club.

The talented duo fended off fast-charging Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith of host nation Australia, who carded a second straight 65 to share second place with Mexicans Abraham Ancer and Roberto Diaz, who fired three birdies in their closing five holes for a commendable 66.

Korean talents Byeonghun An and Siwoo Kim settled six shots back of Team Belgium following a battling 70 while India’s Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar matched the day’s efforts of Team Korea to settle for a share of 10th place at the prestigious US$7 million event.

Team China’s Li Haotong and Wu Ashun closed with a 67 to take 13th place on 277 while Thai duo Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Prom Meesawat marked their best round of the week with a 66 to finish a further shot back in tied-14th.

Malaysia’s Ben Leong and Gavin Green slipped to 22nd place following a disappointing 74 while Hideto Tanihara and Satoshi Kodaira took 23rd place for Japan after posting a 72.

Did you know?

• Team Belgium’s Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry would each take home a winner’s prize purse of US$1,120,000 following their victory.
• Belgium became the 17th different country to win the World Cup of Golf and the eighth European country to win in the last 10 editions of the event.
• They carded matching rounds of 63s in both the fourball matches on Thursday and Saturday.
• After dropping a shot on second, Pieters and Detry bounced back with an eagle on fourth before adding two birdies to turn in 33. They went on to trade four birdies against three bogeys on their way home to seal the victory.
• Pieters played his second World Cup of Golf this week while Detry made his debut.
• They were former teammates at the University of Illinois. Pieters is 26 years old while Detry is 25.
• Team Korea of Byeonghun An and Siwoo Kim dropped a shot on the third but bounced back brilliantly with an eagle on the next before adding two more birdies to turn in 33. They would dropped another shot on their way home to sign for a 70 and grab a share of sixth place.
• An and Kim, who averaged 25 years old, is the youngest pair amongst the six two-man Asian teams in the 28-nation team competition. Byeonghun An is 27 years old while Siwoo Kim is 23.
• An, highest-ranked player from Korea, is a one-time winner on the European Tour while Kim has won twice on the PGA Tour. Kim is the first player from Asia to win twice on the PGA Tour before the age of 23.
• Best result by a Korean team at the World Cup of Golf remains the fifth place finish in 1971 (Chang Sang Hahn / Seung Hak Kim) and 1982 (Chang Sang Hahn / Sang Ho Choi).
• Team India of Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar nailed five birdies against three bogeys for their closing round of 70.
• They hold a combined total of 16 victories on the Asian Tour, which includes three co-sanctioned wins on the European Tour.
• Lahiri, now a regular player on the PGA Tour, is a two-time International team member of the Presidents Cup. He is also the Asian Tour Order of Merit champion in 2015.
• Lahiri, 31, and Bhullar, 30, have represented India together in numerous team competitions since their amateur days. They featured in the Eisenhower Cup, Nomura Cup and Asian Games, delivering a team silver in 2006, before venturing almost at the same time into the play-for-pay ranks where they also represented Team Asia in the inaugural EurAsia Cup in 2013.
• Arjun Atwal and Jyoti Randhawa’s ninth-place finish in Portugal in 2005 remains India’s best result in the prestigious event.

Players’ quotes:

Thomas Pieters (Bel)

It feels very good. It’s not something you put on your list when you’re a golfer, but, you know, I felt it this morning and I felt it while we were playing, it’s just excitement and a bit nervous. I told my mom and dad it’s been a long time since I won and this feels as good as an individual title. I’m very, very happy.

I told him on 18 when he hit that drive, I said that’s a drive of somebody that’s going to win next year, for sure. To hit a drive like that, I can tell how much adrenaline was going through his body by how far it went.

I think we’ll take a lot of confidence out of this. It’s a shame the season’s over for me now. I felt like I played really good today and both of us we played really good. Sometimes we felt the guys coming, Australia coming right behind us and we answered it with a birdie, so I think we handled the situation very well.

I told Thomas yesterday, “Let’s play like we’re two behind.”  You do that in match play any time, I think you play against somebody else. It’s just the same as the second day. I told him, you know you’re going to make a couple of bogeys, but we’ll make a lot of birdies as well just because the weather was nicer, the greens were a bit softer as well. Not much strategy‑wise we changed or nothing, no.

Bringing this thing back home, I think it will change a bit how kids look at it and they’ll have something to look up to. We had Nicolas Colsaerts to look up to. We never really got in touch with him when we were younger and I think we would have loved it.

He maybe because he had the same coach, but for me it would have been amazing to see him play.  In a couple weeks we’re doing a day with all the juniors back home and for me it’s fun to do that because I know how much I would have loved it, so that’s why we do it.

Thomas Detry (Bel)

We weren’t far away in the soccer World Cup, so it’s pretty good to bring it back. Like Thomas said, it’s not really something you put on the list, but when it happens, you qualify for it, you play for it, you play with your best mate and it’s kind of a dream come true.

There’s nothing like representing your country on the other side of the world, it’s just amazing. Our two coaches, one of my two coaches, they both played it a long time ago, but they played it and they had an amazing experience.

Being able to put our name down the list when you see the amount of good players and all the big names that were actually on the cup, it feels pretty special. We’ve known each other since we were eight or nine years old. We used to play those junior events back home.

We kind of grew up together playing regionals, practices together, and then national team together under 18, and then he went to college, he went to America and I followed him. We know each other pretty well and we’ve never got sick of each other, I guess.  Well, maybe a few times, I don’t know maybe.

It’s a dream come true to play with him.  He’s got a lot of experience, and yeah, it was very comfortable to play with a guy like that.

We tried to keep it easy, just fairways and greens. It’s such a tough format.  It can be an easy format when things go well, but I think if things go wrong, it can be really hard to find some confidence and get some momentum back.

Like this week he was hitting a lot of long shots and I wasn’t really hitting that many long shots. I think I hit two drivers today, second one was on 18, so it’s really not that many tee shots. So you’ve got to find the right balance and try to build up on that and get some confidence back on the course, it’s not easy.

Byeonghun An (Kor)

It was just close. We really didn’t have much of birdie chances today.  I think my shot wasn’t that sharp, I guess, compared to the first two rounds so didn’t really have much of a birdie chance.  The par-fives were the only chances we had.

Overall, it’s been a decent week. I think there are a lot of great teams out there and to finish inside top‑10 is quite nice. We obviously wanted to do better, but it’s golf, we just didn’t have the best day.

It’s definitely a better experience than the last time I played the World Cup. I played better and he played pretty good this week as well. A little disadvantage having different balls, I guess, whereas other guys have a similar golf ball.

That’s why I struggled with the short game a little bit this week. It’s a disadvantage, but we did pretty well, considering that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to represent my country again in two years’ time.

Siwoo Kim (Kor)

We did pretty good to finish inside top‑10. We didn’t manage to give ourselves a lot of chances today but overall, it’s a good week. This is my last event of the year. I’m looking forward to getting some good rest before the next season starts.

Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind)

Anirban’s our star man today, he was full of energy. I mean, I was, too, I thought so, but he woke me up on the sixth hole and I think before that I was kind of lazy, a lot of lazy swings. But thanks to Anirban, he was the one who was helping the scores.

Other than that, I think pretty disappointed with our finish although things started to get better on the back nine.  I had a few good shots and Anirban, of course, holed a lot of good putts.

It was just towards the end there that we were expecting a few more birdies. I mean, it happens in this kind of format, it’s not easy.

Anirban Lahiri (Ind)

If I were to sum it up, it’s been a bad weekend. I think we played really well Thursday, Friday without a doubt, a lot of positives there. Yesterday really was the day that both of us played quite poorly, and yesterday was the day that we kind of got ourselves out of contention. The effort was there.

Today we both came out and we wanted to go low. The golf course is set up for scoring, quite different from Friday. But sometimes in foursomes, you know, if you’re not both on top of your A‑game, you’re not going to shoot those really low scores.

I think we both really enjoyed ourselves.  We gelled together really well.  We were talking about it, it’s been maybe four or five years since the Eurasia Cup that we teamed last time, so it was a good reunion.  I think we enjoyed ourselves.

Definitely feel like we let it get away from us on the weekend. We should have at least been in there with an outside chance today and we weren’t, so that’s where the disappointment is.

I’m going to go home for a couple of weeks and I’ll play the Indonesian Masters. I’m looking forward to, you know, coming back and playing on the Asian Tour. It’s been a long time. That will be my last event of the year.