Joaquin Niemann continues LIV Golf domination, wins fifth event this year

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[PHOTO: Justin Tallis]

Context is among the most difficult things to measure in golf, regardless of which tour a pro plays on. On the PGA Tour, there’s a hesitancy to compare world No.1 Scottie Scheffler to Tiger Woods, despite the Texan’s past three seasons drawing intense parallels to Tiger in his prime. On LIV Golf, the question of how to compare its runaway star, Joaquin Niemann, to the rest of the golf world is equally as difficult.

Even after Niemann’s fifth LIV Golf win of the season at the league’s UK event overnight.

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“He is undoubtedly a top-10 player in the world right now, and I’m saying at that conservatively,” two-time major winner Jon Rahm said after finishing T-5 and being boat-raced by seven shots by Niemann over three rounds at the JCB Golf & Country Club in the English Midlands.

Despite a valiant, vintage charge by Bubba Watson, Niemann’s wire-to-wire victory was a cakewalk. He made the turn at two-under, then came home in one-under for a 68 that followed rounds of 65 and 63 for a 17-under total.

Two-time Masters winner Watson ignited the large UK crowds with a scintillating stretch in which he hit two masterful drivers off the deck to post a birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie run from holes nine to 14. Watson finished 14-under and alone in second, his best LIV Golf result.

Watson still wasn’t good enough to take down Niemann, the Chilean who won twice on the PGA Tour before joining LIV in 2022. This year, he’s won the LIV stops at Adelaide, Singapore, Mexico City and Virginia before this week’s event. He’s won seven overall on the league plus the 2023 Australian Open since joining LIV Golf.

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This year, Niemann’s $US21,212,381 in individual prizemoney is more than Scheffler’s $US19.2 million, which includes his PGA Championship and Open Championship titles.

“There’s definitely a lot of money at stake, but I don’t play for the money,” Niemann said. “All I want to do is win. If Bubba had beaten me, I would be pretty pissed [off], and money would not change that feeling.”

https://twitter.com/livgolf_league/status/1949519625714012293

What drives the 26-year-old Niemann is competition, which he is certainly getting a good dose of on LIV – Rahm, Talor Gooch, Patrick Reed and Cam Smith were among those in the top 10 in the UK – but with the world ranking excluding LIV tournaments, it is tremendously difficult to gauge. Datagolf had Niemann ranked 19th before his UK win, while the Official World Golf Ranking has him 95th.

“I’ve seen all those strokes-gained rankings and I still don’t understand; he’s won five times here,” Rahm said. “How is he behind so many of us? My guess is obviously it’s majors, events outside of LIV that may be pushing him back. It’s not a true reflection.”

Added Niemann: “I feel like anywhere that I go if I play my best game I know I can win. The only thing that matters for me is to find that A-game more often.”

Not quite anywhere. It’s well-documented Niemann’s record at the majors doesn’t stack up to his obvious talent. After eight years of trying and plenty of missed cuts, Niemann finally broke through for a maiden top 10 at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.

“I feel like there is nothing else to try; it has frustrated me a lot to not be playing good at the majors, but I know I’m going to make it happen,” Niemann said. “I know I’m going to figure it out. This game [can be] frustrating, and I think we all know that. Sometimes we take it personally… but I’m always going to learn from every mistake and every bad result. I’m waiting patiently, I know the results are going to come.”

Marc Leishman, T-11 at LIV Golf UK, predicted Niemann’s majors breakthrough would be soon.

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Photo: Jan Kruger

“It won’t be long until he converts this into the majors; I think knows that and it’s eating away at him a little bit, and maybe he’s trying too hard in the majors, but he’s had an unbelievable year playing some very impressive golf,” Leishman said. “To win five of these is outstanding.”

Niemann has two more individual LIV events to close out the season, for which all signs point towards him winning the season-long points race. He holds a huge lead over Rahm.

And there’s the majors. Should Niemann start to perform better on golf’s biggest stage, or if the world ranking is sorted out in lightning speed, perhaps then we’ll get more context.

Not that Niemann is worried about it. He just wants to win.

“I feel like there is always something else I’m going to be chasing,” he said. “I feel like that’s the way I am.”