Does the globetrotting journey of Joaquin Niemann highlight an obvious solution to elevating the Australian Open back to its former glory?

The irony was not lost on Australian Open champion Joaquin Niemann, nor his brother, Lukas. In June, Niemann, the Chilean golf star who in 2022 left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf, was playing in a 36-hole final qualifier for the US Open. The last-chance event was held at The Bears Club, just minutes from his US home in Jupiter, Florida. Niemann missed a playoff for the fifth and final spot… by one shot.

“I joked to my brother that I qualified for The Open by going all the way to Australia on a 16-hour flight from Chile and there were 156 players and I won,” Niemann tells Australian Golf Digest. “Then I go and play five minutes away from my house in sectional qualifying for the US Open and I didn’t make it.”

Niemann saw the humour in the irony, but took it on the chin as a consequence of his move to LIV in 2022. He left the PGA Tour in late August that year as part of a six-strong group of signings that included Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Anirban Lahiri, Harold Varner III and Cameron Tringale. Niemann was ranked world No.19 and had two career PGA Tour victories when he left, including at Riviera Country Club. He had played on the International team at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne. But playing on LIV, which does not award Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points for its 54-hole, no-cut events, meant he now plays only a handful of events that accumulate points. The OWGR is used by the four majors as the main criteria for entry.

Niemann’s world ranking plummeted after leaving the PGA Tour. By the time he arrived in Brisbane for the 2023 Australian PGA Championship, he was 82nd. But he certainly has no regrets about his 11,000-kilometre flight to Australia. At the end of 2023, he wasn’t eligible for any of the four majors in 2024 and, as he says, Australia is also a fantastic place to visit and compete.

“My main goal [in coming to Australia] was trying to get world ranking points to make it into the top 50 for the end of the year to get into all the majors,” Niemann recalls. Traditionally, the world’s top 50 on December 31 each year are invited by Augusta National to the Masters. Staying inside that number through July triggers access to the PGA, US Open and Open Championship. “I was playing great golf at the end of [2023] and I wanted to keep it going a little bit to get that momentum. Mainly, I was in Australia because of the majors and, other than that, I enjoyed my time in Australia. Golf [in Australia] is a little bit different than in other countries and crowds are great.”

Niemann finished fifth at Royal Queensland, which is also DP World Tour co-sanctioned event. The next week, Niemann triumphed in a sudden-death playoff when he defeated Rikuya Hoshino at The Australian Golf Club. He joined a long list of Stonehaven Cup winners that, among others, includes Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Tom Watson.

Like the Australian PGA, the world-ranking bump wasn’t fantastic, and it wasn’t enough to re-enter the top 50 by December 31. But the Australian Open is among a group of tournaments called the Open Qualifying Series. In each, spots are given to the next Open Championship to a select number of high finishers not already exempt. “I knew the Australian Open was giving spots away for The Open, so that convinced me to go,” Niemann says. “The Australian Open… you see the trophy and the names and you realise there’s a lot of history in there. It would be nice if they have more spots for more majors.”

Niemann’s Stonehaven Cup victory was a start. What he didn’t realise was the organisers of the other majors were paying attention. In February, the Masters Tournament committee extended a special invitation to Niemann for the April major. Chairman Fred Ridley and his Augusta National colleagues were impressed at Niemann’s globetrotting efforts to gain entry to the majors rather than complain about LIV’s lack of access. That’s because he also travelled to the Middle East for the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic, where he was T-4, and the Asian Tour’s International Series Oman, where he was third. Add the LIV events Niemann played in the first three months of 2024, including Mexico, Las Vegas, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, and he travelled more than 70,000 kilometres in the 14 weeks between the Australian Open in late November and early March. It was then that the PGA of America followed the Masters and invited Niemann to the PGA Championship at Valhalla.

Looking back, Niemann is grateful for the recognition. “It felt great having the back-up from the majors,” Niemann says, recording finishes of T-22 at Augusta and T-39 at Valhalla. “I knew if I played well, I would find a way to get in [somehow]. For a moment, I thought I was not getting into the Masters. I never thought they were going to invite me. It was special. I had a good feeling that I was going to be playing in all of them; it ended up working out pretty well going to Australia.”

RETURN DOWN UNDER

A year later, Niemann finds himself in the same boat. He’s not in any of golf’s four biggest events for 2025 as he prepares to defend his Australian Open title. Rather than this be a recurring problem, could golf’s powerbrokers see the enormous opportunity?

The answer is: potentially. If developments in pro golf this year are any indication, at least baby steps are being taken towards ensuring LIV’s best players – those who don’t enjoy the exemptions given to recent major champions like Rahm, Koepka, DeChambeau and Smith – still have pathways to the four biggest championships.

Niemann is LIV’s best example of a talented player frozen out of the majors, but who remains an obvious and sublime talent. While some may criticise LIV’s format, its top 24 players are superstars and major winners, and Niemann won two of its events in 2024. But he will hover in the uncertain area between LIV and the majors until the framework agreement (which aims to bring LIV Golf’s financiers, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, into the fold as a minority investor in the PGA Tour’s newly created, for-profit entity alongside fellow investors, Strategic Sports Group) is finalised.

Meanwhile, exactly what should be done about LIV golfers’ access to the majors remains unclear. It appears to be shifting, but by how much?

Along with the special exemptions given out by Augusta National and PGA of America, the US Open’s organiser, the United States Golf Association, had its chief championship officer, John Bodenhamer, speculate that future US Opens may see some players receive invitations through their performances on LIV Golf. “I think it’s reasonable to expect that at some point, yes, we would create a pathway or some way that we would get those great players [on LIV], give them an opportunity to be unified again,” Bodenhamer said in June.

A suggestion has been to use LIV Golf’s individual points standings for an exemption category into the majors. LIV’s 14 events award league points to the top 24 finishers from 54 total players. The winner of a LIV event receives 40 points, while points regress down the leaderboard until 24th place gets one point, while 25th and beyond receive no points. The question is, how many LIV player exemptions would be appropriate? Just one? Or, the top three? Top five?

“I feel like most of the guys out here can win majors and can contend in them,” Niemann says. “Getting into the majors is tough and you need to make it that way so [LIV players] have to earn their way there. But I feel like 10, or 12, spots would be a pretty good number.

“Since the first season on LIV Golf, I was pretty optimistic [that players would gain entry to the majors] and that’s never going to change. Seeing how everything’s going and how golf is going, I feel like they’re going to find a way to make it a more attractive game for the spectators. The more entertainment you provide on the golf course, the more it’s going to sell. There are a lot of players on LIV who deserve to be there. They’re going to entertain and have a chance to win a major.”

One drastic, but appealing, suggestion came about during the week of the 2024 Masters, when Niemann was a topic of discussion. The Australian Open offering entry to more majors than just the Open Championship was a solution raised by former Ryder Cup captain-turned Golf Channel analyst, Paul McGinley. The Irishman suggested several national opens around the world should be reconfigured to award the winner starts in all four majors the next year. He referenced Niemann specifically.

“Why not make the winner of the Australian Open exempt to all four majors?” McGinley asked on “Live From the Masters”. “Pick a tournament in Asia, maybe the Japan Open, and one in Europe; the French Open comes to mind because it is the oldest title in the world. And maybe down in South America. Talk about growing the game? That would take the world’s best players to those places.”

While many would consider that proposal to be a pipedream, it would be an enormous boost for multiple markets around the golf world. LIV golfers would probably utilise the offer, while several PGA Tour and DP World Tour pros would treat it as a working holiday with a bonus of locking up a start in the majors. For PGA Tour pros, the only way to guarantee major starts for the next year (aside from winning one) is to make the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, a field of the best 30 performers each year. That means there are up to 150 PGA Tour pros (minus past major winners) who are not fully exempt into the four majors.

It would be a win for Australia, which has enthusiastic crowds and some of the world’s best golf courses. But Australia is a long way to come for US-based pros and the prize purses for the Australian Open and PGA are just more than $US1 million each, which is not a lot for tour players accustomed to tournaments with prize pools ranging from $US5 million to $US25 million (on LIV Golf).

Immediately after McGinley’s suggestion, Australian Golf Digest spoke to Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland at Augusta National. Sutherland, a former boss of Cricket Australia, agreed with McGinley and praised the comments of Ridley. In his state-of-the-union press conference on Masters eve, Ridley said Niemann was awarded a special invitation to the Masters because of his willingness to travel. “He went to Australia, played very well there, finished [fifth] in the Australian PGA, won the Australian Open – one of the great, great championships in the world,” Ridley said.

Added Sutherland: “Hearing golf’s most powerful figures praise our national open [was pleasing], and both our events [including the Australian PGA]. The Australian Open [which began in 1904] is one of the oldest tournaments in golf. The list of champions includes many of the great players. Fred Ridley knows that, and Paul McGinley knows that because he came down to Australia and played our great championships.”

Regardless of all that, Niemann is champing at the bit to return to Australian shores and defend one of the oldest trophies in golf – on the Melbourne Sandbelt, no less. And there is still that carrot dangling of three spots in the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

TWICE IN ONE YEAR

Niemann is looking forward to ending a five-year absence from the Melbourne Sandbelt when he tees up at Australian Open co-hosts Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Club from November 28 to December 1. It will be Niemann’s third trip to Australia in 12 months, including the past summer of golf and LIV Adelaide at The Grange in April.

“Australia, the whole country is nice. I enjoyed it last year in Brisbane and Sydney; they were two beautiful places,” he says. “In Australia you’re used to playing good golf courses and I think this year will be the same. We’re going to Victoria and Kingston Heath. That’s not far from where [I] played the [2019] Presidents Cup [at Royal Melbourne].

“LIV Adelaide [in April] was a little bit different than other tournaments [with 90,00 boisterous fans over three days]. At the Australian Open, you see more people than many tournaments that you play around the world. And the golf courses… In 2019, Royal Melbourne was one of my favourite courses. It was super firm, fast. You can play so many different shots off the tee and into the green.”

Many argue Australia is already a winner out of pro golf’s divide because of the creation of LIV Adelaide, where arguably the strongest field assembled on Australian soil in recent memory has become an annual occurrence. But Australia could reasonably aim for more, considering the nation’s contributions to the men’s and women’s games.

If something like McGinley’s suggestion were to come about, would we credit Niemann for being the catalyst? Only time will tell. What Niemann does know is that the Australian Open should be restored to its former glory, when Nicklaus, Player, Watson and other greats would head Down Under regularly and compete for the famous Stonehaven Cup. “I feel like it should be ranked higher; it’s a great tournament,” Niemann says. 

Featured image by Mateo Villalba/LIV Golf