Like many 20-something-year-olds, Pieters' hero from the age of five was Tiger Woods. Remember when Poulter said that, when at his best, it would be "just me and Tiger"? Well, listen to Pieters. "I look at Tiger and he has won what, 80 times?" It's 79. "For me, that's winning four times a year for the next 20 years. I feel that's something I can do. Why not?"
Pieters says all this in such a quiet and unassuming way that the words almost creep into the conversations unnoticed - if it weren't for his extraordinary claims and the fact that his Hercule Poirot accent has a strong American twang picked up during his college days in Illinois. You have to doff your cap to him. Pieters thinks and talks like a champion. He's started well but he's set the bar high for one so young who says he doesn't set goals.
"I don't like to set a bunch of goals," he says. Well, apart from winning four times a year for the next 20 years. "I just try to do the best I can every week. I like what Jason Day does. He doesn't set goals. He just gives it his all every week and if that gets him to No. 1 so be it. I think that's clever."
Nothing that Pieters say comes across as arrogant. The way he delivers his ambitions reminds you of Rory McIlroy. It's refreshing. He knows he's good. There's no false modesty. He is a polite, well-mannered, approachable young man. "Rory is doing what Tiger did for the game ten years ago," Pieters says. "He's setting the standard for fitness and strength. I admire him. He's achieved a lot early in his career, too. But it's not like I get on the course and I'm afraid of him." There is a seriousness about Pieters. He's clearly had a dream of being among the game's elite, but he has a sense of humour, too. "I don't watch golf on TV every week. I have a life outside golf!" he says. "I watch it to go to sleep!"
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