Chamblee 180° speaks volumes
Golf Channel antagonist caves to reality; Adam Scott espouses reason; Stray Shots touts thoroughbreds
Brandel Chamblee has reluctantly changed his tune. (Raj Mehta/Getty Images)
Since LIV launched, one of its most vocal critics — of not only the breakaway tour, but commissioner Greg Norman, the Saudi financiers and the individual players who took the money to play it — was Brandel Chamblee.
It would be hard not to find a negative adjective the former PGA Tour pro turned Golf Channel commentator didn’t use against the entire lot of tour’s traitors.
Last week, however, in an ironic twist of fate, Chamblee saw the light — or the writing on the wall — and now is pushing for a deal to be executed between the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the benefactors of LIV, and the PGA Tour.
“The time is now, to (Rory McIlroy’s) point about making a deal,” Chamblee said. “I wouldn’t have said that a year ago. I don’t think there are a lot of people within the world of golf that would be particularly enamored with the idea of making this deal. But it is the better end of the bargain at this point.”
While I don’t disagree, my first question is — why is it the better end of the bargain?
Why not a year ago versus today?
And what exactly is the bargain that Chamblee is advocating?
Chamblee is correct, many in the golf world and on the PGA Tour and its policy board are against a deal.
Those against a deal were even more emboldened when the Strategic Sports Group poured $1.5 billion into the new for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises and committed an additional $1.5 billion investment.
Presumably the belief is that $3 billion will trump over $700 billion that the PIF has in its public coffers, forget about its private slush fund.
“Do you want to compete indefinitely with someone who is not going to go away, who can outspend you, and if they are in business, every move they make that makes their tour better deletes your tour and causes more division within the tour?” Chamblee concluded in his remarks on Golf Channel May 10.
That’s a good question and one to some extent the PGA Tour answered when they agreed to a framework agreement on June 6. The answer was no. Yet they are in fact still competing as Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk all jumped earlier this year to LIV and more were interested but didn’t pull the trigger.
While the two sides are no longer competing in the court room they are still competing for players and spending millions doing so.
Last week the PGA Tour rolled out its grant schedule to its players through its Player Equity Program. It totaled more than $900 million. The eight-year grants are a retention program, which will likely not keep a player who wants to leave from leaving since LIV using PIF’s instantly vested dollars can trump any grant the tour issues.
As Chamblee said: “Do you want to compete indefinitely with someone who is not going to go away, who can outspend you?”
Chamblee said something that most everyone can agree on — that the PGA Tour is in a pickle, like it or not.
Again, something that everyone can agree with, but it’s a pickle of the Tour own making and it has the potential of becoming the Guinness Book of Records pickle, which is currently 3 feet 8.6 in.
Thankfully Chamblee stepped back, took a somewhat dispassionate look, and saw the bigger picture.
Now it’s up to those on the policy board to do the same, because if not, the pickle will get larger and larger, and eventually the Tour will be unable to sustain the levels of revenues needed to compete with what will surely be the superior Tour in LIV.
Aussie vet Adam Scott see the lucrative new world clearly (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Adam Scott: Suave Voice of Reason
Adam Scott has long been known for his good looks and smooth swing. He’s played some pretty good golf, too, over a long career that has seen him win 14 times on the PGA Tour including the 2013 Masters.
Considered a prime candidate to join LIV Golf — and rumored to have been close on more than one occasion — the Aussie instead surprised by getting involved in the PGA Tour hierarchy as a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board.
In pushing back on the notion that there is dissension on the board regarding a deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Scott already revealed a hard truth: if players want to make more money, they’re going to have to do more to earn it.
Scott, 43, suggested in a story via Sports Illustrated that the idea of playing for $20 million purses would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. And that to get to this point, the players don’t have to do much more than just show up and play golf.
That will need to change, he said, as part of the new PGA Tour Enterprises, a for-profit arm that will be seeking to grow the business as a way to further enhance players.
“If we want to play for big money, there are going to be more rules,’’ Scott said. “They’ll have to show up. And do some stuff. I think we do nothing, actually. To be honest, it has been the dream situation. We’re really not told much. Even when a strength-of-field rule was added (requiring players to add an event they had not attended for four years). That’s how good we’ve had it. Incredibly good.
“If you’re a full card carrier, it’s pretty easy to make a schedule out here and do whatever the hell you want. And there’s very little obligation outside of doing a pro-am. I just think there’s nothing wrong with that at all. And playing for $20 million is almost unfathomable. Even for me, coming behind Tiger (Woods). I don’t even know what the purses were in Europe when I turned pro. I can’t believe we’re playing for a $20 million purse It’s gone nuts.’’
Scott was nothing but positive about the future of golf and believes a good outcome with negotiations will be had — in time. He preached patience while also being a solid voice of reason.
Stray Shots: Thoroughbred’s en route to Kentucky
1. The proceedings this past weekend at Quail Hollow Club showcased the pretty much unsurpassed talent of Rory McIlroy when he is on his game and his putter is not particularly balky. Said differently, when he is on, perhaps only Scottie Scheffler can go toe to toe with him.
Sadly, Xander Schauffele could not. The final round began as a two-horse race, but by the end Schauffele could only muster even par for the day and faded like Sham at Belmont. McIlroy went sprinting by him like Secretariat, shooting a field-best 6-under 65 despite a double at the last. The course was as gettable as Quail Hollow gets — Ben An secured third place, three shy of Schauffele and eight behind Mcilroy, with a 5-under 66. (McKenzie Hughes also was 5-under on the day, gaining him a tie for sixth with Denny McCarthy.) But Schauffele could not get it Sunday after leading for 63 holes.
The field was simply lapped by McIlroy. Offhand, one cannot recall where the fourth-place finishers (Jason Day and Sungjae Im) were 11 shots shy of the winner. And isn’t it nice to see Mr. Day, sporting his Malbon golf “street” fashion, return to form with some consistency?
2. McIlroy bagged his 26th tour title (no asterisk next to this one), tying him with Henry Picard for 22nd on the all-time PGA Tour list. His length remains prodigious, and he is so talented that when he is in full flight, it’s almost as if even he cannot stand in his own way.
Next up is the PGA Championship at a venue — Valhalla — where McIlroy won his last major title at the PGA in 2014. He can win tourneys in bunches, and the game could sure use McIlroy ending his 10-year major drought.
3. Now to the non-golf stuff, a.k.a. “As The PGA Tour Leadership Turns.” Is it a coincidence that, freshly blackballed by his peers from regaining a seat on the Policy Board, McIlroy is free to actually — wait for it — focus on playing golf at his otherworldly level? Declining ratings and with the no-name brigade having its way week after week, having Rory at the top of the leaderboard is not a panacea for flagging tour fortunes. But it’s a heck of a start.
Unlike certain other leading PGA Tour lights, McIlroy oozes charisma and popularity. One does not want to miss watching a shot when he is in the hunt.
On the other hand, McIlroy still will remain involved in some negotiating fashion with the LIV/PIF/Saudis That’s an interesting story, particularly since McIlroy (follow carefully) was vehemently and consistently bad-mouthing LIV et al for a couple years, but now wants to embrace the upstarts and “get a unification deal done.”
Hmmmm.
There were those of us who understood from the jump that LIV presented a foe that the tour simply could not ignore, win a war of words with or compete with financially. That there has to be peace in the valley, and a whole lot sooner rather than later. That the upstarts held all the cards to bring a delusional tour to its knees.
You know who is not on the list of those perspicacious folks? Jay Monahan. Rory McIlroy. Brandel Chamblee. The list goes on and on. Why would anyone listen to anything this crew has to say on such matters like business, PIF and the Saudis, and the like? Incredibly, there are still voices who proclaim “we don’t need a deal with the Saudis,” and “there needs to be massive punishment for those defectors who took the money and skedaddled.”
The former view is puerile, and the latter perspective is silly. Who is going to pay tribute to be allowed back on the PGA Tour? And if we don’t need a deal with the Saudis, why are we still negotiating even after the Billionaire Boys Club — er, Strategic Sports Group — committed up to $3 billion to PGA Tour Enterprises?
One waits for the next shoe to drop — a Jon Rahm-type signing — just to keep reminding the tour who really has the upper hand here.
Because LIV still has all the villains, and still has a handful of golf’s great players. Meanwhile, the tour keeps having minor problems like massively declining television ratings (even the Kentucky Derby outdrew it) and a general level of malaise among even rabid golf fans. To wit, absent a major where we can watch everyone, the rest of the tournaments can be left more than taken by viewership.
Meanwhile, sponsors keep complaining. Most recently RBC, which sponsors the signature event at Harbour Town and the Canadian Open. The massive rise of purses does not appear to be helping to staunch the bleeding. In 2021, the Wells Fargo Championship total purse was $8 million. Last weekend it was $20 million.
No, golf’s issues start with the LIV/PGA war. Sadly, they do not end there.