On a difficult opening day at this 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, LIV star Joaquin Niemann was holding his own. That is until his final hole Thursday night.
Moments before first-round play was suspended as darkness fell on Day 1, and just after he’d rallied with two late birdies to get into contention, Niemann suffered an ugly collapse on the 6th hole that could end his hopes of winning his first major.
The worst part for the eight-time LIV winner? He still hadn’t finished the hole when the horn blew, so he was forced to sleep on it and return to the still-unfolding nightmare early Friday morning.
Joaquin Niemann’s overnight ejection at 2026 U.S. Open
Talk about the stuff of nightmares. Niemann’s situation qualifies on multiple fronts.
The 27-year-old Chilean pro has dominated LIV Golf for the better part of two years (though without winning the LIV Individual title in either one). But since joining the upstart tour a few years ago, he’s failed to carry his elite play over to non-LIV events.
Niemann played three majors in 2024, with his best finish a T22 at the Masters. He didn’t qualify for the U.S. Open that year.
Last season, he earned his best major finish ever, a T8 at the 2025 PGA, but then he promptly missed the cuts at the U.S. Open and Open Championship.
This week, Niemann is playing the third major of the year at Shinnecock Hills, but it’s only his second major start of 2026 after failing to earn an invite to the Masters.
Teeing off the 10th in the late afternoon thanks to a fog delay, Niemann struggled at the start of Thursday, making bogeys at the par-4 14th and the par-5 16th to finish his first nine at two over.
But when he headed to the front nine, Niemann’s fortunes, and play, began to change. He made birdie at 3 and then added another at the par-5 5th. Suddenly, Niemann was back at even par and in major contention.
That’s when disaster struck.
Thanks to the late start, by the time Niemann’s group reached the 480-yard par-4 6th on Thursday evening, darkness had started to fall, and it was clear play would be suspended at any moment.
Niemann surely wishes the round had been called a few minutes earlier. On the 6th tee, he sent his first tee shot so far right it crossed the road that runs along the side of the hole.
That shot finished well out of bounds, forcing Niemann to reload and hit his third shot from the tee. Still reeling from his first lost ball, Niemann coiled and fired again… only to watch his second ball fly on nearly the exact same line as his first.
O.B. again.
In just a matter of minutes, Niemann found himself making his third stroke from the tee, but thanks to the penalties, he was hitting 5.
While Niemann’s third tee shot did not go O.B. like his first two, it did end up in a native area that reaches into the middle of the 6th fairway like a peninsula. From a thick lie, he could only advance his sixth shot 113 yards up the fairway.
In a cruel twist of fate, play was officially suspended due to darkness at that point, which means Niemann had to head back to his rental and try to sleep knowing that he was lying 6 in the fairway of a par-4.
Niemann woke up bright and early on Friday, and at 6:35 a.m. ET he stepped back into the unfolding disaster he’d been forced to abandon less than 10 hours earlier.
A look at Joaquin Niemann’s 6th hole in Round 1 of the 2026 U.S. Open.
USOpen.com
His seventh shot on the hole, and first on Friday, came up just short of the green. With his eighth shot, the LIV star finally reached the dance floor, where he one-putted to officially record a quintuple-bogey 9.
With that crooked number, Niemann dropped from even par all the way down to five over. On the leaderboard, he plummeted nearly one hundred spots from T17 all the way down to T112.
Thanks to his unceremonious collapse, Niemann will not be fighting for position over his final 21 holes on Friday. Instead, he’ll be fighting just to make the cut.
