Joaquin Niemann’s wire-to-wire win at The Genesis Invitational coincided with another landmark. Charlie Sifford, the last to win in similar fashion, would have been 100 on Sunday. Niemann acknowledged this and more. Excerpts.
We would like to welcome Joaquin Niemann, the champion of the 2022 Genesis Invitational. Joaco, it’s your second win on the PGA Tour in dramatic fashion, led from start to finish, wire to wire. You move to seventh in the FedExCup, I think fifth in the Presidents Cup International Team rankings. It’s been quite a week. I know leading wire to wire is one of the most difficult things to do and it’s kind of a coincidence that in 1969 this event was won by Charlie Sifford in wire-to-wire fashion. Seems like a little coincidence. Just talk about the way you played and the fact that it happened this week.
Joaquin Niemann: The first two days I think it was a different tournament for me. Obviously I play my best golf on Thursday and Friday. Obviously I knew that the weekend was going to be hard, it was going to be a battle. I knew I had to be fighting myself a lot during those two days. Yeah, like it was amazing to see also because today it would have been his 100th birthday for Charlie and he was the last winner winning wire to wire and being the same year he’s turning 100 is some coincidence. I’m just happy to be the winner here at Riviera.
RelatedContent:- Joaquin Niemann up there with Charlie Sifford at Genesis Invitational
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Can you touch on how this performance — you’ve obviously played some stellar golf, but how would it rank in your career as some of the best golf you’ve played?
Niemann: Obviously it’s the toughest tournament I think during the year. It’s got the best field, the best players are here and that proves myself that I can be competing with the top guys, I can be up there in the world ranking. I think it’s going to give me a lot of confidence for what is coming next. I think at the beginning of the year, just started playing great golf at Torrey. Yeah, coming this week I was feeling really confident about my game and I was able to handle it during the week.
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Just finally, that was a pretty wild ceremony down there on 18 green. Just receiving the trophy from Tiger (Woods), how special was that, and just at the end when all your fans were there and you ran over to them at the end?
Niemann: It was awesome having Tiger there. I haven’t seen him since probably a year. Everybody knew what happened here one year ago, which was pretty sad. Being able to see him doing as well as he’s doing is awesome. It talks pretty well how good he is in any aspect of golf and life. He’s awesome, he’s one of my idols. I always watched him on TV and I still do. Having Tiger on site receiving the trophy is something special.
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Just the comment on the fans at the end.
Niemann: Yeah, the fans, there was a lot of Latinos, a lot of Chileans, so you can feel the support of them. They were cheering differently than the people here. It was special to have them there and spend some time with them. They follow me the whole round and spend one minute with the trophy and take a picture. I think I made their day.
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