PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 16, 2026

Joaquin Niemann

Aronimink Golf Club

Flash Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Joaquín Niemann is with us now at the 108th PGA Championship. Joaquín, 66 for you today. How would you summarize your third round?

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: Good. Yeah, it was a good day. I feel like Saturday is always this -- the way I finished yesterday, I wanted to go out there and put a low round. I feel like it's hard to have that mentality knowing that it's a really tough course, tough positions of the pins.

I had to kind of be even more patient and kind of have the same strategy as I did the first two days.

Yeah, I just started on the first hole, I just got a little bit too aggressive, missed on the wrong spot and start with a bogey there. I feel like that helped me out a little bit to kind of wake up and just keep the game plan, so yeah.

Q. Do you feel like this is the level of golf you're playing right now? Like today reflects where you are in your golf and what you can do tomorrow?

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: It's a good day. It's nice to be in that position. I feel like there's a lot of golf to play yet. I would love to be in that position having nine holes to play.

So, yeah, I mean it's fun. Definitely it's going to be a little bit more tense. It's going to be nerves for sure this afternoon and then tomorrow all the expectation, and I feel like that's the way it always works.

Yeah, I feel like it's looking -- you know, I play good golf, and that's it, nothing else.

Q. Can you talk about the second shot at 16?

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: Yeah, I feel like I made eagle there, I think more because of the tee shot. I think it's a really tough tee shot. The fairway is all left to right, went to the left, so I needed to hit a high draw. And I've been hitting more kind of like mid fly, carried fly all week. There I just had a good setup.

When I needed to, hit a beautiful draw, keep it on the fairway. Then I had a 9-iron. During practice round we thought that we couldn't go for that pin because it's pretty firm and it's hiding right on the edge, and it's not a good miss anywhere there. So thought about hitting the middle of the green and had a 9-iron there. I think it was the perfect number. And hit a beautiful shot.

Q. It's been a bunched-up leaderboard this entire tournament. You're in a chasing position going into tomorrow. How do you think it's going to kind of play out in terms of like do you feel like --

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: No idea.

Q. -- it's going to be a bunch of guys up there at the top even tomorrow?

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: No idea. It's going to be what it's going to be. I just -- I know what I need to do. One guy can just run away. It could be stuck in the leaderboard like it is right now. There's many things to happen. There's a lot of golf to play today for the leaders.

I just know that I've got to stay in my place, in my world, and try to execute the best I can and enjoy my lunch and my dinner now. There's not anything else I can do.

Q. How much more comfortable are you now after 54 holes with this course than say --

JOAQUÍN NIEMANN: It's a tough course. It's a tough course. It's really tough. The rough is brutal. I mean, you want to be on the fairway every time, so every tee shot is like you must hit the fairway so you can score.

Then the second shot is also the same. You've got to peripherally know what's going on on the greens, where the uphill putt is, try to leave yourself that. And there's some pin placement that's are pretty crazy that we never thought they were going to put them, but they did. So, yeah, we had to play with it.

I feel like it's just try to miss the best you can in a way, so yeah.