Next up on our player diary series, Belgium’s Manon De Roey recalls clinching her first Ladies European Tour (LET) title a year on from winning the Aramco Team Series – Bangkok Individual event by three strokes.
A moment seven years in the making, the victory proved to be a turning point for De Roey as she went on to record her best season to date on the LET – finishing fourth in the 2022 Race to Costa del Sol before earning LPGA Tour Membership at LPGA Q-Series.
On the eve of defending her Aramco Team Series Individual title in Singapore, the 31-year-old looks back on that life-changing weekend at Thai Country Club…
Finally, I thought. I had waited so long for that moment. I came so close so many times, but from those moments when I didn’t win I feel like I learned a lot and I took that with me for the future.
That moment in Bangkok was special. I mean the final round, I sometimes watch it back on YouTube to see how I moved and how I did things well. So then sometimes when it’s not going well throughout the season I look at it back to see what I did there, and then I try to do that again!
That moment in Bangkok was so good. I had waited so long for that. So I’m very happy I won in Bangkok.
My life definitely changed afterwards. Some doors opened which was nice and in Belgium I’m a little bit more well known now, because it’s always about the guys – Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry and Nicolas Colsaerts – of course they can have the attention too, but now people realise there’s also a woman in Belgium who is doing good, not just in Europe, but all over the world actually. So that was very important.
The most enjoyable moment of that win was having my friends come up to me and congratulate me. I feel like over the years I’ve created so many friendships on the LET – I’m definitely going to miss them when I go to the LPGA and I play a little less on the LET. But I feel they’re still going to support me wherever I go.
It’s really nice to have a group of friends on tour, in good and in bad times. Because it’s not always going well, so if you’ve got some friends that you can go to it’s really nice.
What did I do to celebrate? When I came back from Bangkok I actually left straight away for Jabra and then Belgium. So when I got to Belgium I spent a lot of time with friends and family there to actually enjoy my win from Bangkok which was really nice. I didn’t do anything too special, it was just nice to be at home and have a nice family dinner.
You can hear more from De Roey about her golfing journey, Olympic memories and maiden win on the LET on this week’s episode of the LET Golf Podcast. Listen now on Apple Music, Google and Spotify.
