We talked hate mail, why he continues to squabble with the Twitter jackals, rated Jay Monahan’s leadership and listed some of the unsung heroes of the Tour-LIV ongoing war in professional golf. We covered a lot of ground in this Q&A so let’s just jump right into it.
GWK: Phil Mickelson had a now-infamous rant about the PGA Tour’s “obnoxious greed.” How do you define obnoxious greed in golf?
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Well, I would say it is only looking out for yourself and not the betterment of the game. That’s what’s going on in a lot of corners in professional golf. Every generation made more money than the generation before them. There was not a lot of boohooing about woe is me. Relative to the rest of the world, golfers were pretty darned well paid, if you were one of the best.
They tried to behave in a certain way that maintained, I would say, the pretty clean image of professional golfers that were concerned with the traditions of the game, self-policing the game, being philanthropic and giving back to the game. When I say giving back, I’m talking about talking to the media, talking to the fans. You don’t just get to take the money and leave. There’s no better example than where we sit right now at Bay Hill and Arnold Palmer. Peter Jacobsen came along after Arnold Palmer, and he almost with a megaphone, every chance he got, talked about how everybody should emulate Arnold Palmer. Nobody could win like Arnold Palmer. Very few could. But that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t behave like Arnold Palmer. You leave the game a little bit better than you found it.
But I think what we’re seeing now because of obnoxious greed, we’re seeing players that are going to leave the game not a little bit worse but substantially worse than they found it.
GWK: Which LIV player are you most disappointed in?
BC: Well, Phil. Hardly any of these other players had the popularity to make a difference to tilt the game one direction or another. Phil had the potential to do a lot of good in the game. Look, he could have sat in that chair as a commentator for the next 20, 30 years. I have no doubt that he’d have been good at it. By all accounts, he’s a pretty smart guy. By all accounts, he spent a lot of time thinking about some cool stuff in the game of golf, and I would have liked to have listened to him for 20 or 30 years. I’d liked to have heard what he had to say. The fans loved him. You know, within the small world of golf, there were a lot of people that didn’t particularly care for him, but I certainly enjoyed watching him play. I didn’t love the way he played. I heard him say somewhere along the line that he got criticized for his aggressive style of play. It’s like, who else out here besides Tiger has won more than me? Maybe some people should try to play more like me. If there’s one criticism I have of what’s going on out here outside of the LIV world, it’s that everybody is being coached in the same way. They know their dispersion rates. They know where to play and everybody is counting cards, so to speak.
Phil wasn’t afraid to hit on 16, to make a gambling analogy, which may not be entirely fair to Phil, but as a gambler on the golf course, that’s what people pay to watch. Do something that’s a little bit risky, crazy – he did some things that were crazy on the golf course, like here on 16 out of the right trees. But he had a very high level of skill and a very high level of knowledge of what he was capable of, and it was fun to watch him.
I’m disappointed in him because he could have left the game in a better place. People were, early in his career or most of his career, they were making the analogy that he had similarities to Palmer, go for broke, gave the fans what they wanted, and I think he turned his back on the game. I think he turned his back on the stage that made him who he was and all the people that came before him.
I think that the players that have gone to LIV have done a disservice to the game of golf. It’s like they’re going to get theirs. It’s like they’re all pulling the ladders up. They had to climb up those ladders to get to where they were, and the people that had placed those ladders were the generations that came before them. But they got there, and they think, well, I did it all on my own, I’m going to get everything for me. I’m pulling the ladders up.
I think Phil could have done a lot of good for the game of golf. Instead he’s really hurt the game. (...)
GWK: It's possible there could be a PGA Tour event in Jeddah in a couple years. If there was a Live From set there, would you do it?
BC: I was asked a question about China all the time. I have no problem with PGA Tour China. I have no problem with trying to grow the game in Jeddah or Riyadh or Mecca or Medina. I have no problem with trying to grow the game. The problem I have is with somebody trying to buy the game and run tournaments to obfuscate their atrocities. I don’t have any problem with the PGA Tour or any other golf league going to play at the four corners of the world to grow the game.
PGA Tour China was about trying to promote golf in China. It wasn’t owned by the Chinese – far as I know, it was run by the PGA Tour reaching out to grow the game of golf. The players that went over and played there were not playing for Xi. They were playing for avenues on to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour or wherever in the world they wanted to play.
The LIV Tour is about distracting from Saudi Arabia’s atrocities. Give the masses bread and circuses and they will forget. The whole idea of sportswashing is nothing new. It goes back to Roman times. That’s what the gladiator games were all about.
The money from Saudi Arabia is everywhere. It’s everywhere because publicly traded companies don’t get to control who invests in them. They have no recourse to stop a foreign investment. But golfers do.
GWK: Which player who has stayed loyal has revealed himself as selfish and not added any constructive input during this ordeal?
BC: Well, I felt like Rory didn’t get the support that he needed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that players were selfish. But I felt like Rory was out there and was a force against the source of the money for LIV, and he was a formidable source for the PGA Tour, and he didn’t get the support from any of the players. I didn’t hear Jordan Spieth being vocal in support of him. I didn’t hear Justin Thomas. I didn’t hear Scottie Scheffler. I didn’t hear Xander Schauffele. I didn’t hear any of them as forcefully as Rory was speaking out on the issue. It was like he was taking most of the heat if not all of the heat, and I think after a while, I don’t know it to be the case, I haven’t talked to Rory, but I think after a while, it was listen, I’ve done everything I can do and I’m not getting any support, so I’m going to bow out. Why is it up to me to fight this whole battle myself?
I would have loved to see more players come out and speak on behalf of the PGA Tour or just the traditions of the game and the foundation of the game and talk about how where the game has gone over the last couple years has been bad for professional golf. It’s been great for them from a financial standpoint, but they’re alienating the biggest stakeholder in the game of golf, which is the core fan.
GWK: Should Tour loyalists be compensated for staying loyal?
BC: No, I don’t think so at all. I believe they already have been. I think the money has already been distributed. But I certainly didn’t agree with that. Doing the right thing is in and of itself a reward. They did the right thing, those that stayed. I think the reward is there, and for them to be compensated ignores the generations that came before them and the generations that would come after them.
Again, this is a place in time where these players occupy a spot in the game of golf, but it’s a very short window. Most of them are going to play for 15 years, 10 to 20 years. It’s a pretty short window. There will be players that come after them. Should they be compensated? Should the players before them be compensated? If you’re going to compensate current players, you’re ignoring past generations that bequeathed to them the foundation of the PGA Tour. So no, I disagree with it. I’m happy enough to listen to people argue the other side of it, and I have listened to them that you need to, as best you can, stop the threat of LIV poaching the best players and try as best you can to make players understand that if they stay loyal to the PGA Tour, the financial benefits will be tremendous, which they are. I understand it. I just don’t condone it.
GWK: Are you concerned that LIV's poaching of Tour talent will continue?
BC: I turn on the broadcast and look at the leaderboard and there are 10-15 names I’ve never heard of. The fields suck. They’re small fields. People want to make it out like Joaquin Niemann is a great player. Did you miss the part where he played for 3-4 years and never had a top-10 in a major championship? Yeah, he was a good player, he was on his way, maybe he was going to be a great player but what is he forced to do because he went to LIV? He’s forced to go play wherever he can to get world ranking points. Give him credit, he’s willing to do all that but in the meantime he’s whining that he doesn’t get world ranking points knowing full well he joined a tour that didn’t qualify for world ranking points.
All these guys that go to LIV, it’s amazing, take the money and shut up. Why are you whining? You all knew the consequences of your actions, all of you. You all knew you were playing a tour with no ranking points for very explicit and defined reasons. Shut up! Take the money and by the way, don’t think that you’re a top-10 player in the world because you beat 12 guys. That’s who you’re beating. (...)
GWK: How do you rate Jay Monahan's leadership during this?
BC: Poor, unfortunately. I think Jay is a sharp guy and I hear nothing but great things about him. When I go up to TPC Sawgrass, I go up there once or twice during a year and take groups up there and play golf, and I go in and have dinner, and unprompted they tell me the nicest things about Jay Monahan, that he’s one of the greatest guys you’ll ever meet. I hardly know Jay. I’ve probably sat in his presence two or three times and talked to him two or three times in my life, and that’s about it. By all accounts, he’s the greatest guy.
But I think if he had the chance to do it over again, he would have done it differently. He would have kept more players in the loop, done the best he could to ameliorate the difficulties of that scenario knowing players were in the loop and it may change the deal.
But he was in a really tough spot. The derision that is directed at Jay Monahan I think is misdirected. How could you, in running a business, have anticipated an irrational economic actor? How could anybody in any business anticipate their competition essentially giving away a product for free, and then being held accountable for the loss of market share? How could you as a CEO of a company – let’s say you make TVs and Sony and Samsung starts giving them away for free. How could you have anticipated that? How could you react to that? How do you respond to that? That’s economic suicide, but they don’t care on the other side because it’s not about selling the TV, it’s about obfuscating something else.
[ed. Exactly right.]
