Joaquin Niemann was cruising along Thursday as the sun set over the east end of Long Island. He had opened this U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills with two bogeys and two birdies through his first 14 holes and was squarely in the thick of the early tournament picture.
Then, the wheels came off. The LIV Golf pro arrived at the par-4 sixth and hit his first tee shot out of bounds to the right. He re-teed and blasted another tee ball OB to the right. His third tee shot landed in the fescue to the right. Niemann walked up to his ball and saw ants surrounding it. He asked a referee if they were fire ants and if he could get relief. He couldn’t. So he laid up, putting his sixth shot back into the fairway, and then Niemann lost his head, chucking his sand wedge 50 yards in frustration just after the horn sounded to stop play for darkness.
Niemann eventually made a quintuple bogey 9 on the hole. On Friday morning, the USGA assessed him a two-stroke penalty for “serious misconduct,” turning that 9 into an 11.
“I was playing good golf. I got expectations. I would like to win this tournament, as anybody here,” Niemann said on Friday at Shinnecock Hills. “I work hard every day to give me [the] best chance [of] winning. I hit two terrible tee shots, came out of nowhere. Hitting the golf ball at 8:30 p.m., I felt like my body wasn’t quite there. I had a bad lie on the third tee shot in between the fairways, and it was a pretty bad lie.
“I saw a lot of ants there, and I was just asking the referee if they were fire ants, and like, he [said], no. To be honest, I was pretty — I wasn’t angry asking him. I was pretty normal, pretty chill, because I knew I needed to keep going and try to shoot the [lowest score] possible. After that shot, I hit it, I lay up, and the whole frustration went inside me. … After I hit that shot, like all the frustration that came inside me and had my club in my hand, and I couldn’t resist to throw it away.”
A year after Wyndham Clark — who coincidentally leads this U.S. Open — chucked a club and almost hit a volunteer at the 2025 PGA Championship, Niemann said he made sure there were no people in the vicinity of where he hurled his club.
“There [were] no people, obviously. No one there,” Niemann said. “I’m not proud of it, but yeah, I mean, sometimes, you know, all the expectation of trying to play well and things doesn’t go your way, you get frustrated, and that was me there.
“I got pretty frustrated. I’m not someone that likes to be in that behavior. I’m the first one to judge myself when I don’t behave on the golf course. That was a [misbehavior] from my part. I felt like a little bit extra penalized with a two-shot penalty, but I think it is what it is. I think I’m going to learn from it. It definitely kind of helped me a little bit to have a better round today.”
After receiving the two-shot misconduct penalty after he signed his card on Friday morning, Niemann said he had 37 minutes to digest what turned out to be an opening-round, eight-over 78 and get back on the course for the second round and try to salvage something from this major championship. Niemann has historically struggled in his career at major championships and didn’t want his trip to the U.S. Open to be cut short.
It would’ve been understandable, even expected for Niemann, whose U.S. Open chances had evaporated in a matter of minutes, to wilt and exit Shinnecock early. But something else happened.
He said he hit a few tee shots, rolled two putts and then went out with an aggressive mindset to get back in position to play the weekend. He birdied the first and then stuffed his tee shot on the par-3 second to five feet for another birdie.
He bogeyed the third but then made birdie at four, five and six to jump back inside the cutline. He turned in four under 31 before a bogey at the 10th. But he got that shot back with a birdie at the 11th and then poured in a 44-foot birdie putt on 13 to get back to three over for the tournament, which is where he will enter the weekend after shooting a 65, with no club throws, in the second round.
“I kind of went out with a pretty aggressive mindset, so yeah, I mean, it worked out,” Niemann said. “Sometimes, especially in these tournaments, could go the other way, and this time it worked.”
After a sizzling 65 at Shinnecock, Niemann sat at the podium and addressed his misconduct. He said that while he thought the penalty was harsh, he understood why it was given and that he, and other pros, shouldn’t conduct themselves in that way.
“It’s their decision, and I feel like, yeah, I wouldn’t be happy seeing players throwing clubs and behaving that way, so yeah, I mean, I agree,” Niemann said.
After walking the media through his emotions and helicoptered club, Niemann was asked which specific club he sent flying into the Long Island air. He said it was a sand wedge before offering a cheeky response about how he responded on one of the toughest courses in the world, a response that was equally as impressive as the distance he hurled his club.
“Yeah, I played good today too, though,” Niemann said, with a smile. “Thank you. Thanks for asking.”
That he did. His reward? Two more rounds in the ring with the USGA and William Flynn’s diabolical design.
