ATLANTA -- Joaquin Niemann had nowhere to be on Sunday, but he decided to play the final round of the Tour Championship as if he were in a hurry.
A big hurry.
Niemann, playing first and alone because Brooks Koepka withdrew on Saturday with a wrist injury, raced around East Lake Golf Club in one hour and 53 minutes on Sunday. He teed off at 11:40 a.m. and was finished some 30 minutes prior to the leaders teeing off.
He also got a good-natured scare from the PGA Tour, which told him afterward he was being fined and then let him stew for few minutes before finally telling him it was a joke.
"I didn't know how fast I could get 18 holes, but on the front nine, I decided to play quick but not like crazy quick, not like rushing and hurrying up," said Niemann, 22, who is from Chile and is ranked 29th in the world. "But then they told me I did like just over an hour, I was like, ah, I'm just going to rush it and try to break the record. It was pretty good, the back nine.''
The "record'' was 1 hour, 59 minutes, set by Kevin Na at the 2016 Tour Championship. The PGA Tour said its unofficial record for fastest round was set by Wesley Bryan at the 2017 BMW Championship, where he finished in 1 hour and 29 minutes.
At times, Niemann would jog to his ball in the fairway or run between greens and tees. As the round wore on, he seemingly played faster, aware that the record was in view. He finished last among the 29 players. Perhaps more under duress was Niemann's caddie, Gary Matthews, who said they lightened the golf bag prior to the round to make the trek easier.
"Definitely lighter than usual," Matthews said. "He had three golf balls. He didn't have the usual nine. He didn't have a rain cover. He didn't have any little instruments that we had. He only had one glove, five tees. Not much shakes and stuff like that in the bag. Umbrella was gone."
Matthews said when they got to the 15th tee, they noticed that the group playing behind them, Stewart Cink and Hideki Matsuyama, was on only the eighth hole. When it was over, Niemann was greeted in the scoring area by PGA Tour official Andy Pazder, who told him and the caddie that they had disrespected the game and the tournament, and that he would be fined $10,000.
"I look at him like, I was burning inside," Niemann said. "I was going to say something and he's like, 'All right, forgive me. Before you say something, I was just kidding,' I was like, 'Oh, I hate you.' He gave me a really hard time."
Niemann said he was disappointed that his game was off this week and that he was not playing particularly well. "I was in last place and wasn't going to win,'' he said. "I was pretty far behind from the guys in front of me, so I was like, let's make it fun and have fun.''