The best golf feeling? Joaquin Niemann gave a great answer

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. — LIV Golf chugs on, this week stopping in Chicagoland for its 12th event of the season. Similar to last year, there’s already an overwhelming favorite for the season-long crown, thanks to Joaquin Niemann’s five victories in 11 starts. 

Win that much and you’ll get a press conference or two, but Niemann doesn’t exactly love going deep about his form or what he needs to do in specific any week. He did, however, give a fantastic answer to a very simple question:

Why do you love golf? 

Niemann was slightly taken aback. “Why I love it? I mean, it’s just everything,” he said.

Golf means just about everything in his life, of course, but for Niemann it seems like what he enjoys most are the positive outputs that follow a long line of particular inputs. They can be literal results on a scorecard, or more theoretical traits developed over time. 

“Whenever I’m playing bad, I feel like I figure out something that makes me enjoy that in a way because I know when I’m not at my best or I have a tough week, I know there’s something there to learn,” Niemann said Wednesday. “And I feel like it just builds a character out of you, playing this game. I feel like it gives you a lot of values that is going to help you out in whatever situation you’ve got in front of your life.

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“In this game, you’re going to feel uncomfortable probably 90 percent of the time, and to trust yourself and to have that commitment of knowing that what you’re doing is right, and commit to that in a situation that is really uncomfortable — I feel like it really talks good about yourself. In a way, it’s a lot of self love. I feel like it’s something that I’ve got to keep working on. I feel like sometimes I get in my own way as well. It’s something that I’m working on.”

It’s comforting knowing that even a 5-time winner this year needs improvement in the self-love department. Most golfers do. 

“Yeah, also, when you’re playing your best game and your best golf, it’s also a lot of fun,” he continued. “You’re able to hit the shots that you’re seeing. I really love playing with the trajectories and being able to see it in my head first and then go there and deliver the shot. Whenever it’s the same shot that I hit that I saw before, I don’t think there’s anything more satisfying than that feeling.”

There is nothing more relatable in this sport than that — sizing up a shot, imagining the path to a target and then pulling it off. The infrequency with which it all works out means you’re all the more jubilant when it actually does. Even for a world-beater like Niemann. 

I had to ask LIV’s likely individual champ if he feels that jubilation like we do. He of course has different standards and expectations than the rest of us, but does that little white ball often follow the path he wants it to? 

“Not too often,” he said with a smile. “I think that’s why it’s really satisfying. Obviously you can get picky, and I feel like that’s the goal. I feel like if I can go out there on the course and say I’m going to hit a draw to the green. You’re going to hit a draw and hit it on the green. That’s the shot I’m trying to do. But I feel like I try to get really intense on what I really want to see and be more precise on what I want to see.”

Niemann seemed to transport himself as he described his favorite on-course feelings; he sat by himself front and center in the room, broadcast lights illuminating the backdrop, but it felt like he was in the fairway. He looked off in the distance, moved around in his chair, raised his right hand and started picking out imaginary targets with imaginary trajectories. 

“Yeah, I want to see it starting at that tree or that cloud that I see there going up in the air — that window that I’m seeing — going down where I want to see it coming down, and judge the wind that it’s going to affect the same amount of curve that I’m seeing in my head.

“There’s so many factors, and then land it in the same spot that I want it. I feel like you’re never going to hit that shot, but almost trying to chase that shot.”

The endless chase, buoyed by a few, fleeting moments of actually catching what you’re after. Golf at its very best.