Joaquin Niemann: Meet one of the PGA TOUR’s youngest rising stars
Watching young talents in sports never loses its charm. Even though a lot of them have failed to reach the top of the game, it’s still very exciting to follow a player’s journey. Today, we take a look at a specific success story: that of Joaquin Niemann.
Meet Joaquin Niemann, only 19 this year, and yet already bagged with not just one or two, but four top tens this season (as of July 2018). The Chilean was regarded by many to follow Jordan Spieth’s footsteps had he won the John Deere Classic last July – and if Niemann had won, he would have broken Spieth’s record for being the youngest player ever to win the John Deere Classic.
While Niemann failed to meet that expectation, he finished only on T23 with a -13 overall (Michael Kim, 25, ended up winning the championship with -27 overall), we can’t downplay Niemann’s achievements, how he has earned his place on the PGA tour, and the fact that he is not leaving anytime soon.
A final-round 64 at the Greenbrier last July earned the Chilean a T-5 finish of the event, that’s his fourth top ten placement after just eight events since he turned professional last April. Meaning, although it wasn’t enough for Niemann to join the Open Championship, it was enough for him to secure his tour card for the next season.
Very few players have earned their place on the Tour at just a 19 years of age, but Niemann is simply here to stay (and if he’s shown to have quite fancy golf carts to take with him on the golf course).
His decision to turn pro didn’t come without sacrifices. In fact, Niemann had to renounce his invitations to the British and U.S. Opens, as well as losing his exemption from the 2018 Mark H. McCormack medal (he won it in 2017).
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Unfortunately, due to his current status as a special temporary member of the PGA Tour, he is not allowed to compete in the next FedEx Cup Playoffs. Meaning, unless he can win the upcoming Wyndham Championship, his season will come to a close.
However, it turns out the 19-year old’s decision to turn pro proved to be a successful one. So far, Niemann has earned $1,156,857 on the PGA Tour alone, not calculating his earnings from sponsors like Ping and Adidas.
Joaquin Niemann: 2017 World’s Best Amateur
Niemann, 6 foot, 155 pounds, was the world’s first-ranked amateur for most of 2017. He actually planned to attend the University of South Florida and stay as an amateur, but he failed the TOEFL exam, the English fluency test for non-English native. (Let’s wonder whether that’s a fortunate or unfortunate event in his mind today).
After failing to enroll at USF, his emergency plan was to grind his way to the PGA Tour through the Web.com tour Q-School. Apparently he was too good for these prelims, and he finally made his pro debut in the Valero Texas Open, just a week after missing the cut at the Masters.
He finished sixth in Valero Texas, an impressive debut that took the world by storm. It’s obviously worth noting that he is the youngest player ever to become a Special Temporary Member of the PGA Tour, breaking the record of Sergio Garcia in 1999.
If that amazing debut caught our attention, his now four top-eight finishes makes us wonder whether he is the real deal (and if indeed he uses drivers perfectly made for him). So far, he is, and the question now is: how far will he go to the top?
In Niemann’s own words, this year has been amazing for him. He had a humble hope of making the Web.com finals, and yet he debuted in a major (a satisfying debut, that is). After he secured the tour card for next season in just eight professional events, it’s fairly safe to say he is the hottest young talent in golf at the moment.
The only thing missing right now for Niemann is a win on the Tour. Mind you, he has won quite a lot of professional titles back in his hometown: the 2016 Abierto Las Brisas
2016 Abierto Las Brisas de Santo Domingo, 2017 Abierto de Granadilla, Abierto Los Lirios, Abierto Las Brisas de Chicureo, Abierto Club de Polo, 2018 Abierto La Dehesa, all of them, amazingly, he won as an amateur.
No wonder, many have now regarded Joaquin Niemann as the current best golfer in Chile. Chile, it’s worth noting, is also the home of Felipe Aguilar, a two-time winner of the European Tour. Now that Aguilar is 43, many feel Niemann has surpassed him as Chile’s best.
An Early Start
Like a lot of successful young talents in golf before, Joaquin Niemann started at a really young age. At a tender age of just 2, his father gave him a plastic golf club and some balls to play with.
Apparently, Niemann showed his talent, and so his father ‘upgraded’ his plastic clubs into real equipment when he was just four years old.
He practiced so hard around the house in Santiago. One time, during a family barbecue, he hit his grandmother’s leg with a 40-yard shot. The shot left her bleeding, and that is still a strong memory for Niemann after all these years.
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Even during his amateur days, Niemann has attracted a lot of attention. One of his college golf coaches predicted Niemann would reach the top of the amateur world by the end of 2017. He exceeded that prediction, as he went on to be the number one amateur almost throughout 2017.
His amateur career is also nothing short of astonishing. He won two IMG Academy Junior World Championship to his name, he represented Chile at the World Amateur Team Championship, he made the Round of 16 at the U.S. Amateur and Western Amateur among other accolades.
Probably the highlight of his amateur career, however, is when he won three tournaments in the world, the one in between being the Sage Valley, arguably the most prestigious and the toughest junior-level event in the world. The other two tournaments are two AJGA open: The Sergio Garcia Foundation Junior at Championsgate, and the TaylorMade-Adidas Golf Junior at Innisbrook.
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The Future For Joaquin Niemann
This season, as mentioned, will be over for Joaquin Niemann if he fails to win the upcoming Wyndham. Yet, his achievements this year have been impressive enough, highlighted with his T-5 at Greenbrier.
Will he follow Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Justin Thomas among others as the hottest young names in the next PGA Tour season? We’ll see. Yet, Joaquin has shown us that he deserved all the attention he got right now (including with how he uses his mallet putter), and we sure hope he’ll give us even better performances in the future.