PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 18, 2022

Joaquin Niemann

Southern Hills Country Club

Flash Quotes

JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon. Welcome back to the 2022 PGA Championship here at Southern Hills Country Club. We are pleased to be joined by Joaquin Niemann. Welcome to your fifth PGA Championship of your young career.

A little factoid, we've got six Latin American players in the field here, which is the most we've ever had in our championship. It's a point of pride. But as one of the six, how does that make you feel that there are strides being taken in a positive direction, that golf is becoming more engrained in Latin American countries?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, definitely golf in Latin America is getting bigger. I think everybody in South America is on the same page. I think everybody, all the young players seeing us up here playing on TV every week, I think it motivates a lot of the kids.

We didn't have that in Chile back in the day. We never see a professional from Chile playing in Chile. We obviously have Camilo, Jhonny from Latin America, but now I think having players from all over the country in South America is really good for golf in our region.

Q. As you prepare for not only a major championship for your season, but there's the notion of being consistently good versus occasionally great. What's your mindset? Are you more of like I would like to consistently be very good, or do I want to be really damn good during a major championship and become a major champion? Which one is more important to you?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: I think it's really hard, both of them. I think it's hard to be consistent out here playing 30 weeks a year. I think it's hard to be consistent on those 30 weeks.

And I think obviously your focus is always on the majors, and you want to try to be the best you can for those four weeks. But I think it's not -- at least I haven't figured out that yet. I think nobody hasn't.

Yeah, I think everybody would love to play their best game on the majors. It's just how golf works. It's not easy. You're always chasing something. You're always working on something. You're always trying to improve something.

That I think is the biggest -- is the main thing that I like about this game, just finding little stuff every week, try to get better every week, and if it happens to be in a major that I can feel my best game, I'll be ready for it.

Q. There's not only six Latin Americans here, there's two Chileans, which makes history for Chile. Can you talk a little bit about that, but also your relationship with as well Mito Pereira, how you support each other, what your relationship?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yes. So Mito, he's a couple years older than me. I remember when I was probably 12, 13, he was probably a couple years older, and he would win everything in Chile. He would win every tournament. He would come up to the States and play the Junior World, and I think he won that one, too.

For me and all my friends that we like grew up playing together, seeing Mito, it was like, oh, there's Mito. He was impressive. Then he got a couple years where he quit golf for a little bit, and it's even more impressive that he come back and played as good as he was and even better.

So yeah, Mito and I have been practicing together for almost six, seven years since we started working with the same coach, that is Eduardo.

And it's really cool also to be spending time with Mito during the week, also during off weeks, practicing together. We practice almost every day together with my coach, and just like it all started back in Chile we're practicing almost every day together, having fun.

So yeah, it's been nice to have him out here together.

Q. And you practiced together again today. So what do you see about the golf course that will work for the two of you?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, I think it's a golf course where you've got to hit it long and straight, and I think we both are pretty long; we just need to be pretty accurate this week off the tee, and I think, yeah, we'll have a good week.

But I think you've got to put the ball in position. I think there's a lot of tricky holes where you've got to figure out some strategy off the tee. It's going to be windy. The wind is going to be different every day, and also it's not easy to get up-and-down on every hole here. There's some big slopes that are running off the greens.

I think you've got to be a little bit more -- you've got to think a little bit more about every shot, where it could be the best sides to miss.

And yeah, I think it's one of those courses where you're going to not just think about the pin and the fairway, just more about it.

Q. So you're still young, but you got a taste of all the different types of majors; you've played in all of them. What is different about the PGA Championship, and what is the main challenge here that is different than other majors do you think?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: From what I remember, I just had a bad image of me playing in that Bethpage where I was missing every fairway and I was laying up from every rough with a 60. Rough was super long. Yeah, that's what I remember. Just long courses, tight fairways, long rough.

I think it's going to be really challenging this week, obviously, with the wind also, and I think it will be a great test of golf for this week.

Q. On the other side of that, what about your game fits quite well with this golf course? Do you think you can exploit your game within the game and put some good numbers up?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: There is a lot of tees that you've got to hit fades and you've got to hit draws to. I think if you can control your trajectory both ways off the tee, yeah, I think you can do pretty well this week. I've been working a lot off that.

Obviously it's easy to say that -- I've been hitting a lot of fairways in practice rounds. It's obviously different during the tournaments, different winds, different conditions, but yeah, I like the way I'm feeling. The driver is feeling good, and I think the driver is going to be key this week.

Q. Have you had success in your young career on golf courses you were playing the first time, or are you usually better off having seen a golf course once or twice prior?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yes, when I think about it, sometimes it's not good playing that course first, because it's crazy how sometimes you always remember the bad things about it and not the good things about it.

Lately, yeah, every time I play I always remember sometimes not the best shots, but I remember the bad shots. I'll try to work on that. Try to get feeling off the good shots on this course. And yeah, sometimes when you get into a new course you're not sure where the bad things are, so sometimes you can be a little bit more aggressive.

But I think on a course like this, you've got to think a little bit more, so I think it's kind of different between a major than a normal week.