Joaquin Niemann reaches career-high world ranking after Genesis win

Joaquin Niemann has reached a new career-high in the world ranking.

The 23-year-old Chilean won the Genesis Invitational in wire-to-wire fashion on Sunday and then jumped to No. 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking, an improvement of 12 spots from the previous week.

“Obviously, it’s the toughest tournament I think during the year,” Niemann said. “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.”

Niemann is now the fifth-highest ranked potential International Presidents Cupper in the world, behind No. 10 Hideki Matsuyama, No. 11 Cameron Smith, No. 13 Louis Oosthuizen and No. 18 Abraham Ancer.

There was minimal movement in the top 10, with Jon Rahm remaining No. 1 and Dustin Johnson slipping to ninth after a missed cut at Riviera. It’s Johnson’s worst ranking since March 2016.

As for Genesis host Tiger Woods, who has not teed it up since the 2020 Masters as he continues to recover from a serious car accident last February, he is No. 830, just behind Ryo Katsumata and just in front of Nitithorn Thippong.