Joaquin Niemann explains two-stroke penalty after bounce-back 65 at U.S. Open

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – After becoming the first player to be penalized two strokes at a major championship for “serious misconduct,” Joaquin Niemann bounced back with a second-round 5-under 65 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club to make the cut on Friday at the 2026 U.S. Open.

>“Yeah, that was a misbehave from my part,” he said. “I felt like a little bit extra penalized with two-shot penalty, but I think it is what it is. I think I'm going to learn from it. It definitely kind of helped me a little bit to have a better round today.”

>Niemann was penalized for tossing his sand wedge on the sixth hole on Thursday shortly before play was suspended due to darkness. He wasn't informed of the penalty until after he completed his round. He made an 11 on the hole, resulting in an opening-round 8-over 78. Niemann, a 27-year-old LIV golfer, hit two drives out of bounds to the right and his third, while finally in play, wasn’t much better.

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>“Two bad swings. Then, yeah, got pretty frustrated. I'm not someone that like to be in that behavior. I'm the first one to judge myself when I don't behave on the golf course,” he said.

>That frustration boiled over when he found his ball and had a bad lie from his third tee shot and asked an official if he could get relief from fire ants. Niemann was told no. He played his next shot from the bad lie and that’s when he lost it.

>“All the frustration that came inside me and had my club in my hand, and I couldn't resist to throw it away,” Niemann said.

>The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig spoke to volunteer Tristan Chang, stationed at the sixth hole and who witnessed Niemann kick the white flag that another volunteer had used to mark his ball before chucking his club approximately 50 yards. “Pretty impressive throw,” Chang told The Athletic.

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Just talked to a volunteer, Tristan Chang, who witnessed Joaquin Niemann’s club throw that cost him a two-shot penalty:

-After hitting two balls OB, Niemann tried to get free relief from fire ants (to no avail) from where his third drive ended up in the fescue -Got visibly…

— Gabby Herzig (@GabbyHerzig) June 19, 2026Niemann had to play three holes on Friday morning after the re-start and signed his scorecard for what he thought was 76. That’s when a referee approached him and told him that his club-throwing was determined to be "serious misconduct" under Rule 1.2b. Niemann said he was unaware of the rule and the penalty, which was instituted this year for the first time at the majors to police such boorish behavior.

>“I knew I had a misbehavior, but I feel like everybody had some, and it's never going to anything major like two-shot penalty, you know?” he said. “So, yeah, I mean, he start talking to me. They consider with the whole committee that it was a right decision to give me a two-shot penalty, which I kind of, like, a little bit — obviously I was trying to argue back and try to don't get those two-shot penalty.”

>Niemann had exactly 37 minutes – he timed it – to regroup before his second-round tee time. His team tried to lift his spirits.

>“It was hard. I mean, took me probably 30 minutes to get over it, then two minutes to hit some tee shots, two putts, and then go out,” he said.

>Niemann birdied his first two holes and five of his first six holes to show some fight and battle back to secure a weekend tee time. In doing so, he becomes the first player in nearly 100 years to do so at a U.S. Open after making a 10 or worse in rounds 1 or 2 — the last was Bill Mehlhorn, who carded a 10 in round one in 1929.

>“Everything was on. Yeah, I mean, hit great tee shots," he said of his 65 that matched the low score of the second round. I kind of went out with a pretty aggressive mindset, so yeah, I mean, it worked out.”

>This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Joaquin Niemann explains two-stroke penalty at US Open