The Wonder Boys

A new generation of stars is storming the Tour, led by Joaquin Niemann, Sam Burns and Cameron Champ. And trust us, these guys are not kidding around.

- Dylan Dethier And Sean Zak

lt’s Tuesday afternoon in early November at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, and Joaquin Niemann, just a day shy of 20 years old, has mischief on his mind. He grabs a wedge and a ball from his golf bag and takes aim at an open garbage can in the far corner of a conference room at the Fairmont Hotel, the tournament’s buzzing hub of activity in steamy Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

“Is that the only breakable thing over there?” Niemann asks, pointing at a framed photograph just beyond the bin. No matter. From a super-tight lie on the carpet, he clips a spinning, low-flighted pitch that sails across the room, rattles off the back of his target and drops into the trash. Swish. Niemann feigns an uppercut fist pump as Sam BURNS, standing nearby, shakes his head, laughing.

It’s a youthful moment in a scene filled with them—but that’s the idea. BURNS, 22, and Niemann are waiting for another Tour young gun, Cameron Champ, 23, who’s lost somewhere on the Fairmont’s sprawling grounds. “No worries,” BURNS says of the brief delay. “I’ve literally got nowhere to be.”

Life is good for these three. For Niemann, who earned his Tour card last summer after competing in just a handful of sponsor exemptions; for BURNS, who stared down Tiger in the final round of last year’s Honda Classic; and for Champ, whose eye-popping power yielded his first Tour win, at the Sanderson Farms, just weeks before the Mayakoba.