Player meltdowns occur in virtually every U.S. Open — particularly those played at diabolical Shinnecock Hills.
Most recently, in 2018, Phil Mickelson was the star of the meltdown show when he played hockey with his own golf ball on the 13th green on the third round, exasperated that he could not get it to stop on the slick, undulating surface. Along with all the strokes he took on his own, he was assessed a penalty and took a 10 on the hole.
Early Thursday evening, it was Joaquin Niemann, a 27-year-old uber-talent from Chile who plays on LIV Golf, who effectively ended his chances at winning his first career major championship by melting down on the sixth hole.
Niemann made a mess of the 480-yard, Par-4 sixth hole by hitting two tee shots out of bounds. Play was actually suspended before he would end up taking a quintuple-bogey 9 on the par-4 when he finished it Friday morning.
And then, insult was then added to injury when the USGA assessed Neimann a two-stroke penalty for throwing a club, violating Rule 1.2b, which states “serious misconduct.’’
That turned his score on the hole into an 11, seven shots over par on it, and left him with an 8-over-par 78 in his first round, 14 shots behind first-round leader Wyndham Clark. He was at even-par before he got to No. 6.
Here’s the anatomy of the breakdown/meltdown:
- He hit his first tee shot across a road and out of bounds.
- He re-teed and hit his second drive into the same place, out of bounds.
- His third tee shot landed in native grass area that juts into the fairway.
- He then advanced his next shot just 113 yards from the thick lie.
At that point, with Niemann laying six, play was suspended for darkness at 8:25 p.m., leaving him to hae to sleep on the nightmare awaiting to his his seventh shot on Friday morning when play resumed.
Niemann returned at 6:35 a.m. Friday and came up short of the green with his seventh shot.
He reached the green with his eighth shot and made one putt for what he thought was a 9.
The collapse dropped him from even-par to 8-over and he dropped more than 100 spots, from tied for 17th when he began the hole, down the leaderboard.
Niemann has dominated LIV Golf for the better part of two years, as the most successful individual player in the tour’s with a record eight individual tournament titles.
He’s captain of Torque GC and was recognized as the 2025 LIV Golf MVP by his peers following a five-win season.
That success on the Saudi-backed tour, though, has not carried into the major championships he’s played.
In 2024, his best finish in three majors was a tie for 22nd at the Masters (he didn’t qualify for the U.S. Open).
Last year, he had his best major finish ever, a tie for eighth at the PGA Championship, but he missed the cut at both the U.S. Open and British Open.
This year, he tied for 18th at the PGA and did not qualify for the Masters.
And now, in this U.S. Open, he’s faced with a difficult climb, thanks to the sixth-hole calamity, to merely make the cut by the end of the second round on Friday.
