when he added <\/a>\u201cTop 5? Try #1\u201d to the discourse earlier this year. Niemann won five times on LIV this season, which is certainly evidence of his ability. But he also finished T29-T8-MC-MC in the majors, another disappointing campaign for a player who knows that\u2019s where much of his career will be defined.<\/p>\nAnyway, that\u2019s the conversation around him. As for Niemann himself? He\u2019s a real and delightful person. He\u2019s on the verge of his 27th birthday. He\u2019s wrapping his eighth year as a pro. He\u2019s intense in tournament play but quick to laugh when he steps away. He still has the boyish energy of the teenage sensation who made it on Tour \u2014\u00a0but he\u2019s contemplative, too, spending more time journaling. And he wouldn\u2019t be able to change that unique swing \u2014 the weed-chopping, stone-skipping, hip-whirling swing \u2014\u00a0even if he wanted to. (He doesn\u2019t.) And you can ask him anything except his favorite golf club. They\u2019re listening, after all\u2026<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I learned from Niemann in a half-hour on the range.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“><\/p>\n
1. You might not be saying his name quite right.<\/p>\n
I bet you\u2019ve got the full thing down. But \u201cJoaquin\u201d often gets shortened to \u201cJoaco,\u201d which I tend to say as a very American \u201cWah-ko\u201d but he enunciates with a slightly subtler \u201cHwa-go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans have a tough accent to say \u2018J-O\u2019 together,\u201d he says charitably.<\/p>\n
2. He used to have a specific 40-yard swing \u2014\u00a0but not any more.<\/p>\n
Niemann begins his warmup with a 60-degree wedge, as do many of his peers. But I was interested to hear him say that over the years he\u2019s actually gotten less mechanical with his in-between wedge shots. Once he gets to the point in his warmup that he starts thinking about yardages \u2014\u00a060 or 70 yards, say \u2014\u00a0he uses his head and his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m better at hitting the number when I see something,\u201d he says. \u201cLet\u2019s say I want to land it just on the green. I feel I\u2019ll have a better knowledge of where to land that than just a number, so I go with my feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a slight change from his younger self, Niemann says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to be more \u2014 I\u2019ve got a 40-yard swing, I\u2019ve got a 50-yard swing, I\u2019ve got a 60-yard swing. But now it\u2019s more free and I play with my vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. He thinks about throwing the ball to his target.<\/p>\n
This is related to No. 2, but it\u2019s interesting enough to separate out.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me if it\u2019s like, \u2018hey Joaco, throw a ball to the 50-yard [target], it\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to calculate how far I\u2019m going to throw it. I\u2019m just going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
[Throws ball pin-high.]<\/p>\n
4. He gets stuck on the 8-iron.<\/p>\n
Niemann says he typically runs through all his wedges \u2014\u00a060, 56, 52, then pitching wedge \u2014\u00a0and then alternates on his way down through his irons (sometimes 9, 7, 5 but usually 8, 6, 4) doing what he can to \u201cmake sure they\u2019re not getting neglected.\u201d But then he gets stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, growing up I used to hit a lot of 8-irons. Like, all day. And my 8-iron was destroyed,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
This resonated with me because I, too, used to get stuck hitting millions of 8-irons during a through-the-bag range session. There\u2019s something appealing about the first club that\u2019s not a wedge.<\/p>\n
5. As a kid, he used his clubs as weed-whackers.<\/p>\n
Niemann\u2019s father \u2014\u00a0a college basketball player in Chile and a 20-handicap \u2014\u00a0introduced him to golf. But it was his mother whose backyard bribery may have taken him next level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to live in a house where we had a big yard, like, outside the city. And my brother was probably playing video games or playing football or whatever, and I was working with a club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niemann would pitch balls around his yard for hours at a time and then pitch in on some work in the garden, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my mom used to pay me, I dunno, five bucks to break [weeds],\u201d Niemann says. \u201cSometimes I think that\u2019s why I dig so much into the ground, and I\u2019m like, \u2018f\u2014.’\u201d<\/p>\n
6. He\u2019s a big thinker.<\/p>\n
Niemann plays some video games, he says, after his practice-physical therapy-cold plunge-sauna routine. But he spends more time than you\u2019d think on more intellectual pursuits, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little bit of reading, all that kind of stuff to kind of help me develop myself better; I feel like I\u2019m getting to know myself better and I need to progress on reading, you know, journaling, all that kind of stuff. I can evaluate myself, how I\u2019m doing in my life, in golf, my relationships, all of that,\u201d Niemann says. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m a big thinker, I like to be quiet, you know, and just think about what\u2019s going on outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
7. Trajectory, he says, is everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like more than having a number, I lean more on the trajectory,\u201d Niemann says, showing off his creativity in the way he thinks through shots. \u201cIf the green is going to release, I can land it 10 short, hit something low, it\u2019ll skip and spin. Or if the pin is on the front, you\u2019ve got to hit something really high. I go more with windows than actual numbers, y\u2019know?\u201d<\/p>\n
8. He favors a little cut.<\/p>\n
Niemann likes to hit his irons pretty straight \u2014\u00a0but if the ball is going to move he wants it falling slightly left to right.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I \u2018miss\u2019 a shot I want it starting left but cutting,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s my feel. If I hit it right then cutting is no good. If I hit it left and it\u2019s drawing, terrible. So I know when the ball starts a little left and it\u2019s cutting that everything is going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
To hit the cut, Niemann aligns himself a few yards left of the target and then, as he says, \u201crotate as hard as I can.\u201d It works pretty well for him.<\/p>\n
9. He says his golf clubs are listening.<\/p>\n
I ask Niemann if he has a favorite club. He answers seriously.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t tell you. They\u2019re here and they listen,\u201d he says. \u201cThey get jealous. They\u2019re all in the bag because I like them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
10. He carries a 5 hybrid.<\/p>\n
It says \u201c5\u201d on it, after all. But Niemann insists it\u2019s a \u201c4\u201d or at least that it flies \u201c4 distance.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you were a kid you were thinking about having a 2-iron,\u201d he says. \u201cI had to give away my childhood dream. I only [go through] 5-iron now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fairness to Niemann, he does have a 3-iron he uses sometimes. But if you needed any further permission to grab a lofted metal, just know he has a 7-wood in his arsenal. He has a 4-slash-5 hybrid.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019re listening.<\/p>\n
You can watch the whole thing below or here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n“><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These days, the conversation around Joaquin Niemann can obscure the man himself. Let\u2019s get more specific: It\u2019s pretty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-262710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}