Joaquin Niemann, Like Others in LIV Golf, Faces Uncertain Future in Majors
Amid a week of upheaval in golf back in late February 2022, Joaquin Niemann emerged victorious at Riviera Country Club, winning the prestigious Genesis Invitational and having the trophy presented to him by Tiger Woods.
That was the week when Phil Mickelson’s bombshell comments about Saudi Arabia and using the proposed LIV Golf entity as leverage against the PGA Tour were published. It’s when players who eventually did go to LIV—such as Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau—recoiled and pledged their allegiance to the Tour.
Niemann’s victory was swallowed up in all the drama, but he opened the tournament with consecutive 63s and won over Collin Morikawa, Cam Young and Adam Scott.
Niemann, 24, has plummeted in the Official World Golf Ranking since joining LIV Golf.
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At the time, the now 24-year-old from Chile who had already been a pro for four years and was considered one of the game’s young stars, had two PGA Tour victories on his résumé and was ranked 20th in the world. He played with Woods in the first two rounds of the Masters that year, tied for third at the Memorial and qualified for the Tour Championship, with top-10 finishes at the final two FedEx Cup playoff events.
He was ranked 19th in the world, then jumped to LIV Golf.
Now he is ranked 68th in the world (79th in the SI World Golf Rankings), and after three consecutive years of playing all four major championships, he’s staring at not playing in any of the game’s biggest tournaments in 2024.
And with the news last week that the Official World Golf Ranking will not be accrediting the LIV Golf League, Niemann’s prospects for playing the majors are bleak.
The subject came up Thursday at Doral, where LIV’s season-ending Team Championship begins Friday. Niemann, who is captain of the Torque team that finished third in the regular-season team standings, was alongside two other captains, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson—both former Masters champions.
And Niemann was clearly lamenting his fate.
“These guys have already won majors,” Niemann said. “They won the Masters. They have a chance to always go back to the majors. For me, it’s kind like right in between because I don’t have the World Ranking right now, but I know I have the game to be competing on the majors and be winning majors.
“So it’s been kind of hard not having the option of being in the majors right now. I mean, trying to figure out what I could do to get into the majors knowing that I don’t know what’s going to happen next year, if they are going to give spots to LIV players.
“I’m working hard every day to get better. I want to win majors and I want to have my chance to be playing on those. Hopefully there is some way that we can get into those events.”
And for now, that is unclear.
LIV Golf could resubmit its OWGR application, but that would require changes to its structure and there is no guarantee that any of it can happen in time to make a difference for next year’s major championships.
There is also the hope among LIV players that the majors will give direct spots to LIV players via its season-long points list or through some other playing avenue via LIV tournaments.
“I’ve been saying since the beginning of LIV that we shouldn’t go after World Ranking points,” Watson said. “We should go after top 10, top 15 on the money list, our points list on LIV should get into majors. Makes it easy. These guys are so good. The top 10 this year could play against anybody. You could make a U.S. team, you could make a European team, they could play with anybody, our top 10.
“So that’s how you should get into majors, and I’ve been saying that forever. Forget points. Just go straight off the money list, try to get 10 people, or 15 get in.”
While the idea is reasonable, the number of players is not. It’s difficult to envision the majors giving that many spots to LIV golfers. If it even happens, the number of spots allotted is more along the lines of two or three, or that number for those who are not otherwise exempt.
Either way, it wouldn’t help Niemann, who had five top 10s in LIV events this year and finished 21st in the point standings.
As it is now, LIV has 13 major champions, 12 of whom will be eligible for at least one major championship next year. The only one who is not is Graeme McDowell, who got a 10-year U.S. Open exemption for winning at Pebble Beach in 2010.
Five players—Brooks Koepka, DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Mickelson and Johnson—are eligible for all four majors in 2024.
None of this should come as a surprise. When LIV players signed on, they knew the league was not getting world ranking points and there was no guarantee if and when it would. Talor Gooch is in a similar position to Niemann as a young player who is shut out next year, after winning LIV’s season-long individual title as well as three tournaments. It was among the risks taken in signing on with LIV.
“Obviously it was something I considered, but then I knew the vision that LIV had in helping the game grow,” Niemann said. “And I thought about it, like the majors, they should do something. … I mean, the majors is all about having the best players in the world competing against each other.
“I think there’s a lot of those guys right here that are not able to play in the majors right now.”
Niemann said he’s considered other avenues to try to boost his world ranking, which would need to be in the top 50 by the end of the year or two weeks before the start of the Masters in order to get invited to Augusta National.
Without having access to the PGA Tour, the quest is nearly impossible. He’d need to play in Asian Tour and International Series events and likely would need to win five of them to earn enough points to have any chance to move up that high.
“For me, it’s been a little bit frustrating the last couple months knowing that I’m going to be outside the top 50 and not going to be able to get into the majors,” he said. “I’m going to have to try to go play different tours to try to win world ranking, but I still think it won’t be enough to make it because all the world ranking [points] now are on the PGA Tour. I mean, it’s hard to be going higher in the world rankings.”