LIV GOLF TUCSON

March 17, 2023

Joaquin Niemann

The Gallery Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome Joaquin Niemann, the captain of Torque GC. Tell us a little bit about your round.

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, I'm pretty excited to see Torque up there on the leaderboard. There was a lot of fans out there, and yeah, for me, I started pretty good. I actually thought I was going to go pretty low, and kind of didn't get it going during the middle of the round, but yeah, I'm pretty happy the way I finished and the way the team is up there on the leaderboard.

THE MODERATOR: Were you watching the team leaderboard throughout the day?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, I saw them there, I saw David was playing amazing. It's nice to see David playing great. I knew he was missing some good rounds and I knew he had them in him, so it was pretty cool to see him scoring well.

Q. Do you think he had a little bit of extra motivation being here with ASU and home in Arizona?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, since the practice rounds you could tell he was feeling like home. He was playing great. He was having a lot of fun on the golf course, and yeah, you can see it on the score.

Q. Are you guys going to do any team meetings? What's your strategy going in with such a strong day?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Like what we do, we're four guys to like to hang out together so we keep doing the same, have some dinner, and have a good one tomorrow.

Q. Could you talk about coming off Mayakoba finish, your first podium finish as a team and what it's been like the last two week that you could build on that.

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, looking back to Mayakoba, we didn't start well the first round, so I think we can try to keep doing the same. We have really -- the four of us feel pretty good playing great golf, and I'm pretty excited to see what's going to happen on the weekend.

Q. How important is it with chemistry with you guys in particular? Obviously you speak the same language, you're kind of all about the young guys, the youngest team in --

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, it's special. I think we don't try hard to get along. It's pretty easy for the four of us to hang out together, play practice rounds together, have dinners together. Group chats. Yeah, everything is coming pretty easy, so it's been great so far.

Q. How do you like desert golf? Obviously you liked it today.

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: I like it so far.

Q. Do you have any experience?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: No, I probably played like one AJGA in Arizona, then the Phoenix Open probably once, so probably this is my third time in the desert.

Q. You played great today; they say that golf is a young man's game. You are certainly, you just mentioned it, you're the youngest team out here. What are you guys doing to do tomorrow and Sunday to keep this team in the red and stand on the podium on Sunday?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: I think we've just got to keep doing the same. Since the practice round, since Monday, we've been having a lot of fun on the golf course, and I think if we tried to do the same, during the weekend, just have fun, hit our golf shots, I think it should be all right.

Q. You played yesterday in the pro-am. Was the course playing a little tougher today than yesterday?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, this course got really tough greens. They've got tough pin positions. It gets really hard, especially if the greens are getting hard there.

I think they could get a lot harder for the weekend. We got a little rain yesterday, so yeah, I think it's going to keep getting harder.

Q. You started off really hot. What are some of the things you want to improve on tomorrow?

JOAQUIN NIEMANN: Yeah, I started -- I mean, off the tee was pretty good overall. I hit it really close at the beginning of the round. My putter is feeling great. I would say during the middle of the round, I struggled a little bit with my putter, trying to find something different, and then at the end I hit good putts, so I think I got to hit a little bit closer for the weekend, and yeah, should be -- I'm feeling pretty good overall, my whole game.