Brandel Chamblee Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Claude Harmon compares PGA Tour to ‘Truman Show’ while scolding critics of Brooks Koepka, LIV Golf

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 24 May 2023 05:56:27 +0000

Claude Harmon and Brooks Koekpa. Andrew Redington

There are people in every pro golfer’s inner circle who privately mourn the losses and setbacks and celebrate the triumphs. Some do it more privately than others. In the case of golf instructor Claude Harmon III, he grabbed the microphone presented him with both hands and belted out his thoughts on numerous fronts after his pupil, Brooks Koepka, won the 105th PGA Championship on Sunday.

Speaking to Golfweek during the final round and after it, Harmon let loose on his perceptions about the greatness of Koepka, Brooks’ treatment by the media and the ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf — the latter of which Koepka became a member in 2022 after he initially and publicly pledged his allegiance to tour on which he’d previously spent his entire career.

For Claude Harmon, the son of renowned instructor Butch, Koepka’s PGA triumph was his eighth as a coach — five with Koepka, two with Dustin Johnson and one with Ernie Els. Harmon has never been shy about sharing his opinion, and he’s done it for a living as a Sky Sports commentator and host of his own podcast.

In gushing out his opinions to Golfweek, it was as if Harmon was waiting for the perfect opportunity to go off. It doesn’t get much better than your guy winning his fifth major to become the 20th all-time to reach that mark.

CH3 (Claude Harmon lll) is awesome. His dad is too and should be in the Hall of Fame already. Great read. He holds nothing back, just like his father. https://t.co/aKtY3ixan8

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) May 24, 2023

“There couldn’t be anyone that got more grief for doing the LIV thing than Brooks,” said Harmon, though Phil Mickelson might disagree. “He got a big dose of the anti-LIV hate. And he got a big dose of: ‘He’s a bum, he’s washed up.’ Listen, he’s a generational talent. He’s not like everyone else. Brooks is Aaron Rodgers. He’s a franchise quarterback in the NFL. In other sports terms, he’s a starting pitcher who just threw another no hitter, won another World Series, won another Cy Young. That’s who he is. He’s a player. He’s Kevin Durant. He’s one of those athletes that everybody in sports is saying get him on my team I don’t care how much I have to pay to get him. That’s the type of athlete he is … ”

Harmon contends Koepka’s victory “goes a long way to debunking the LIV myth, which is ‘everybody got paid, you’re not going to care, and if you get paid, you’re going to phone it in’. Nobody thinks that way with Lamar Jackson, with Dak Prescott, with the NBA. Why is golf different? Why do we want golf to be not like everything else? That’s what I fundamentally don’t get.

“In 2023, we still want golf to be this [expletive] ‘Truman Show’. We want this Deane Beman-Tim Finchem: ‘We’re not the NBA or NFL for our sponsors.’ There’s no transparency, nobody has any issues, nobody has any problems and if they do, we’re not going to talk about it, we’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s the ‘Truman Show’. It’s ‘Leave it to Beaver’. And that’s not the reality.”

Harmon took rips at the media as a whole and NBC and Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee and Golfweek columnist Earmon Lynch — both of whom have been strongly opposed to LIV.

“Brandel is a paid actor by NBC and Golf Channel,” Harmon told Golfweek. “All he’s trying to do is get his lines and shows for the Golf Channel. He’s just trying to get lines for Brandel … And I mean, I love him, I think Eamon is a fantastic writer, but for Eamon Lynch and Brandel Chamblee, who worked for NBC Golf Channel, to utter the words ‘sports washing’ when the company they work for televised the last two Winter Olympics in Russia and China with the same leaders that they’ve had. It’s not like they were good leaders back then. It’s not like Putin was a good guy, right?”

Harmon insisted that he wants to see LIV succeed because he thinks golfers should get guaranteed money that is commensurate with their talent, and cited one of LIV’s biggest detractors.

“I don’t think Rory McIlroy should go anywhere in the world without somebody paying him, including Memphis and Memorial,” Harmon said. “That’s how good he is. Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, if you’re in that category, you shouldn’t be going anywhere without being paid because it’s how good you are.”

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Brandel Chamblee posts one of the craziest scorecards of the year at PGA Tour Champions Q School

Matt Smith — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 11:24:43 +0000

By Alex Myers
In the decade since Brandel Chamblee turned 50 and became eligible for the PGA Tour Champions, the commentator and analyst has preferred talking on TV to playing on TV — competing in just six senior circuit events. But that doesn’t mean the guy still can’t play at a really high level.

Chamblee is giving PGA Tour Champions Q-School a go this week and on Thursday he produced one of the craziest scorecards of 2022. The 60-year-old shot a third-round 67 to move up the leaderboard at Final Stage — but how he did it is what caught our attention.

The former All-American at Texas and PGA Tour winner birdied five of his first six holes at TPC Scottsdale. Talk about cooking. Then after a bogey and three consecutive pars around the turn, Chamblee shot even par over his final eight holes — despite not making a single par. Have a look at his roller-coaster card:

Four-time PGA Tour winner Bob Estes took notice — and Chamblee responded with this after his round.

Fran Quinn leads Wes Short Jr., Jesus Rivas, Simon Griffiths, and Richard Green by one heading into Friday’s final round. Unfortunately for Chamblee, who began the four-round event with 75-72, he’ll need a lot more of those circles if he’s going to earn his PGA Tour Champions card for 2023.

Chamblee is currently T-51 with the top five earning full status and finishers 6-30 being able to apply for PGA Tour Champions Associate Membership. Then again, that might be all Brandel is shooting for. He’s got a pretty good day job already.

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Patrick Reed refiles $750 million lawsuit against Brandel Chamblee, adds other media members to claim

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 08:49:27 +0000

By Joel Beall
Patrick Reed has refiled his $750 million lawsuit against Brandel Chamblee while adding more defendants to his defamation claim.

The lawsuit, originally filed in August in a Texas court, was withdrawn on Wednesday, only for Reed’s attorney, Larry Klayman, to move the case to the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville, a district that covers Ponte Vedra Beach, home of PGA Tour’s headquarters. Along with Chamblee, Reed now is also targeting Golf Channel broadcasters Shane Bacon, Damon Hack and Eamon Lynch, as well as their media companies Golfweek and Gannett.

In similar verbiage to the original suit against Chamblee, the new lawsuit claims the defendants have “conspired as joint tortfeasors for and with the PGA Tour, its executives, and [tour commissioner Jay] Monahan to engage in a pattern and practice of defaming Mr Reed, misreporting information with actual knowledge of falsity and/or reckless disregard of the truth, that is with actual and constitutional malice, purposely omitting pertinent key material facts to mislead the public, and actively targeting Mr Reed since he was 23 years old, to destroy his reputation, create hate, and a hostile work environment for him, with the intention to discredit his name and accomplishments as a young, elite, world-class golfer, and the good and caring person, husband and father of two children that he is.”

The court filing goes on to claim: “It is well-known on tour that Mr Reed has been abused and endured more than any other golfer from fans or spectators who have been allowed to scream obscenities only to be glorified by Defendant Golf Channel for doing so, because it gets the Defendants ‘clicks,’ viewership, ratings and increased revenue.”

While not named as a defendant, Reed takes aim at the PGA Tour, claiming the organisation is working with Golf Channel to purposefully destroy LIV Golf, the circuit that Reed joined this summer. The lawsuit says these actions have hurt Reed’s health and performance. Though Reed has fallen outside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, he recently posted a T-5 at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship and in four appearances with LIV Golf has been a part of four consecutive wins in the team portion of the series.

Reed also claims he was “constructively terminated” as a member of the PGA Tour in June and that he later signed with LIV Golf. During its inaugural event in London in early June, LIV Golf announced Reed had signed with fledgling league. In late June, Reed said he had resigned from the PGA Tour at a press conference in Portland, with the tour issuing a memo on July 1 that Reed had been suspended after teeing off in the second LIV Golf event at Pumpkin Ridge.

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Brandel Chamblee rips Phil Mickelson on podcast: ‘One of the worst apologies I’ve ever seen written’

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 02:25:39 +0000

Steph Chambers

By Christopher Powers
Not long after Phil Mickelson apologised for his “reckless” Saudi golf comments, Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee dissected the reigning PGA champion’s statement as only he can. Never one to shy away from calling it how he sees it, Chamblee specifically honed in on the third and fourth paragraphs, calling them “damage control.”

Chamblee doubled down on Wednesday on the Stripe Show podcast, calling Mickelson’s statement “one of the worst apologies I’ve ever seen written.”

“The first paragraph is him pretending to be a victim,” Chamblee said. “The second, he’s trying to pretend he’s an ‘activist.’ What ill in that second paragraph is he trying to solve in the game of golf? That the world of professional golf doesn’t have a tour funded by one of if not the most reprehensible regimes in the world? The game of golf really needs that? That first sentence, ‘golf desperately needs change.’ Who believes that? Golf has never been better, it has never been more of a booming nature to the game. From the equipment, new numbers of golfers coming to the game, women, children, a less-informal crowd, which is great for the game. The game couldn’t be better. All he’s doing behind the scenes is working both sides of the street so that he can ensure his biggest payday.

“You can dismiss the first two paragraphs of the statement, because they are nonsense. Really, the third and fourth paragraphs are about spin and damage control, and about trying to shore up the damage he did to the relationship with the Saudis, when he said that they were ‘scary mofos.’ When he said he’s not even sure if he wants it to succeed. This is a guy who, by the way, had co-wrote the operating procedure for this golf league. He’s been in bed with them for awhile, and then he’s stabbing them in the back. And then the fifth and sixth paragraphs are him trying to say ‘look, I’m really just a good guy here.’ Eliminate the first two paragraphs and the last two paragraphs and just hone in on the third and fourth paragraphs, and that’s where you find out who Phil is.”

Chamblee didn’t stop there, as the conversation then delved into who the “real” Mickelson is when the cameras aren’t rolling. “I’d dare say 100 percent of the players out there would rather play with Tiger and they recognize Tiger for being authentic,” he said. “Phil’s always had a reputation amongst the players as trying to manipulate almost every scenario to benefit himself.”

One such scenario, according to Chamblee, occurred shortly after Mickelson’s 2013 Open Championship triumph at Muirfield.

“I can give you all kinds of instances of troubling, eye-raising things that Phil has done. When he won the Open Championship in 2013, you’re meant to — I believe when you enter the tournament you sign that you are going to go in and get the claret jug, if you win it. So he wins it, and he refuses to go in and do it. ‘Gimme the jug, I’m outta here.’ He’s flying privately, those planes tend to wait on the people who are paying for them. But he refuses. And it’s told to him look, you don’t get the claret jug until you go in and have this dinner. After a back and forth, I think he agreed to go in and just do a fly-by.”

While discussing how Mickelson’s involvement with the Saudis will affect this legacy, Chamblee was asked if Mickelson will ever be a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup captain, which was always a matter of when, not if. Before this recent controversy, most had Mickelson pegged as a lock to captain the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 2025 at Bethpage Black. Chamblee no longer believes that to be the case.

“I sure don’t see how. There’s too many hurdles to get over here.”

As for whether he’s played in his last PGA Tour event, Chamblee wasn’t prepared to go that far, yet.

“Who looked like they enjoyed playing golf more than Phil? He seemed to play every daggum week, and playing the PGA Tour Champions and winning. He had this PGA Tour Champions run in front of him. It would be hard for me to believe that. If we don’t see him play in the PGA Championship, then I think we’ll all know he’s been permanently banned.”

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Can Kyle Berkshire, the world’s top long driver, make it on the PGA Tour? We’re about to find out

Golf Digest Middle East — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 02:11:28 +0000

Editor’s note: This story originally ran last December. Since then, Kyle Berkshire’s PGA Tour dreams haven’t come to fruition, but on Friday he added another long drive world championship to his collection. And with Bryson DeChambeau reaching the quarterfinals in his impressive debut at the competition, the line between tour pros and long drivers has never been more blurred.

By Alex Myers
During a rare moment on the eve of the 2020 Masters in which the conversation shifted from Bryson DeChambeau, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee turned his attention to another big hitter. “Imagine Kyle Berkshire,” Chamblee said with Augusta National Golf Club as a backdrop. “Imagine him out here if he could chip and putt.”

At that point, few people had considered the possibility of a World Long Drive champ trading in his title belt for a green jacket. Even fewer knew Berkshire had already begun making the radical transformation from pro hitter to tour pro.

With the ability to swing a golf club more than 150 miles per hour (241kmph) and produce ball speeds over 230 (370kmph), Berkshire doesn’t just hit golf balls, he hurts them. The same could be said for the 100 driver heads he’s estimated cracking the past three years. Those staggering numbers led Kyle to a convincing win at the 2019 World Long Drive Championship. And at 22, Berkshire looked to have a long and lucrative long drive career ahead of him.

He still might, but recently Berkshire has turned his attention to a new pursuit. Well, an old pursuit.

The former junior and college golfer is about to embark on a journey that has rarely been attempted, but if ever there was a time to try, it’s now. After all, we’re coming off a season in which a former physics major pulled off his own groundbreaking experiment that proved just how important distance is in today’s game.

Bryson’s breakthrough year came after he decided to bulk up and become more like, well, a long drive champ. He put on 40 pounds, ratcheted up his swing speed, and became, at least statistically, the longest hitter on tour. Along the way, he won the U.S. Open in dominating fashion.

In a sense Berkshire is looking for similar results while travelling from the opposite direction. So can Kyle chip and putt on the level necessary to score with the game’s best? Can the longest hitter on the planet make it all the way to the PGA Tour? We’re about to find out.

“I think at the very least, it’s going to be something people are going to really enjoy following,” says Berkshire, who proudly posted the Chamblee Live From The Masters clip to Instagram the following day. “And it could really turn into an unbelievable story. If I’m three, four years from now walking up the final fairway with a two-shot lead and the tournament in my pocket, it could be one of the coolest stories in the history of golf.”

——————–

At 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, and with long flowing locks that would make Samson jealous, Kyle Berkshire is an imposing figure. But it wasn’t always that way. Golf Digest Top 50 Instructor Bernie Najar, currently the Director of Instruction at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland, remembers beginning to work with Berkshire when he was just a scrawny 12-year-old.

“He was a kid who came out to work on his game,” Najar said. “He was a special character. Not someone out of the gates you’d look at and wow this is going to be the longest player in the world, but certainly you look at the player and you knew they had very good hand-eye coordination and for a smaller kid his age, he could hit the ball pretty hard.”

Even then Berkshire hated being out driven by older, bigger kids. By the time he was a senior in high school, that was no longer a problem.

“You can’t coach speed, just like in basketball you can’t coach 7-foot, you can’t coach somebody swinging 135,” said Brad Stracke, who recruited Berkshire from Crofton, Md. to play at the University of North Texas after seeing him play in a junior event. “I mean, they’ve got to have that in their genes.”

At that point Berkshire was far from the best player in the field, but he was certainly the longest. And in college, he only got longer. Somewhere between his freshman and sophomore years, Berkshire was strong enough to break the screen on a team’s simulator, and was starting to pay closer attention to his swing speed numbers.

“I think working with the Trackman and seeing the numbers and seeing them jumping up pretty quickly, I think he kind of got addicted to it, the swing speed and seeing his ball come off the face like that,” says Stracke, who has coached two future PGA Tour winners in Sebastian Munoz and Carlos Ortiz during his time at UNT. “I think that’s what triggered it, I really do.”

On the course, there was one shot from a team practice Stracke will never forget Berkshire hitting.

“I remember at Gleneagles we were on a hole you have to hit iron off the tee,” Stacke said. “It’s really tight and there some guys down there 275 and I lasered them and I was like, ‘Kyle, you can hit.’ And he said, ‘No, coach, I can’t hit.’

“I said, ‘what are you going to hit?’ And he said ‘3-iron.’ And I said, ‘Well, they’re 275.’ And he said ‘no, no, no.’ And then they left and he flew the ball and it would have hit right on top of their cart. I’m like, holy cow. I knew you were long, but I had no idea you were that long.”

That led to a life-changing conversation between the coach and a player who had yet to crack the Mean Green’s lineup.

He’s a WORLD CHAMPION!

The 2019 #WorldLongDrive Champion is @KyleBerkshire pic.twitter.com/LmCn4sVYkR

— World Long Drive (@WorldLongDrive) September 5, 2019

“I pulled him in my office and I basically said, ‘You could be No. 1 in the world in long drive,” Stracke said. “Are you going to be No. 1 on the PGA Tour? Probably not. But how many guys are No. 1 in their craft in the world? And I said, you can be that guy.”

But even Stracke was surprised by how quickly his vision came to fruition. Berkshire walked away from college golf to pursue long drive full time in 2017. Originally, he was hoping it would help him gain confidence that could benefit his golf game, but by the time what would have been his senior season rolled around, he was already ranked No. 1 in the sport. He punctuated that status with a win at the 2019 World Long Drive Championship, the Super Bowl of the long drive circuit.

By that point, Berkshire had stopped playing golf completely to put all his energy into training and practicing for long drive. According to his long drive coach, Bobby Peterson it’s Berkshire’s work ethic that sets him apart.

“There’s a lot of guys that have the talent to do this sport, but the one thing I’d say Kyle has beyond anyone I’ve worked with in 30 years is focus,” Peterson says. “When he sets his mind to a task, he’ll do it.”

Peterson owns and operates the One Stop Power Shop in Newton Grove, N.C., where he works with a stable of long drive competitors not just on technique, but with their equipment and fitness. He’s been officially with Berkshire since the beginning of 2019.

“We set up practicing really late one night and it was hot and I have those little bags you put air in them and I blew up a pillow and said ‘I’m going to take a little power nap while you get loose.'” Peterson says. “Well, two hours later he’s standing over me and he says, ‘What did you think of that?’ And I went, ‘It’s good.’ I fell asleep and he was warming up and hitting. And he just kept hitting and hitting for two hours. And his hands were bleeding and he had a rash on his arm over here where he was really releasing. I said why didn’t you wake me up and he said well, honestly, you had your sunglasses on and I thought you were just watching and if you saw something wrong you would say something. So for two hours he just ripped shot after shot and it was one of the best practice sessions ever.”

Peterson conservatively estimates that Berkshire hit 50,000 drives full out in practice last year, a number bound to go down as he works on other parts of his game. But so far, fewer reps hasn’t hurt Berkshire’s long drive results. What finally slowed him down was something no one saw coming.

Cy Cyr

——————–

As with virtually all other professional sports, the World Long Drive Association has struggled through the Covid-19 pandemic, to the extent that its owner Golf Channel wound up cancelling the 2020 season. And with no plans to resume in 2021, long drivers came together to host a series of their own events, highlighted by a national championship in Memphis in November. We’ll give you one guess who won that.

To fill the void left by the World Long Drive Association being put up for sale, the Professional Long Drive Association has been formed, and a series of eight events has been scheduled for 2021, including a World Championship in September.

But the sport is still not on the same footing as it was, which is part of why Berkshire acknowledges the time is right to try out pro golf. And since he’s still making good money from competition, sponsors, and a popular YouTube channel, he says he can afford to chase a dream that never went away.

“It’s great to be a long drive champ and it’s a huge deal to me, but I don’t want to be that guy who avoids potential failure,” Berkshire says. “I’m not going to be this untouchable guy who’s unbelievable at what he does. I want to push myself and I have an opportunity to do something great and I’m in a position in my life to really pursue it and I’m kind of putting it on the line here.”

There’s a history of the PGA Tour and long drive crossing paths. In its early years, the World Long Drive Championship was held in conjunction with the PGA Championship. And several PGA Tour pros won the event, from John McCommish to Lon Hinkle to Dennis Paulson. But those guys were accomplished golfers first before stumbling into long drive success. Berkshire would be the first to truly go the other way and make it on the highest level.

In the late 1980s, an era that featured far smaller purses than today, long drive competitions held at many PGA Tour stops were a decent way for golfers to supplement their incomes. But money wasn’t the only difference between then and now. Another was how back then extreme power on tour was almost discouraged.

The PGA Tour only started keeping driving distance as an official stat in 1980. And for a long time after that, the widely held belief was that accuracy was much more closely correlated to tournament success. In a 1989 Daily Press story titled “A Long Drive to Nowhere,” McCommish claimed “Leading in driving distance is the kiss of death.”

And two-time reigning U.S. Open champ Curtis Strange said of “Big John” and the day’s longest players, “They’re hitting 9-iron out of the rough. I’m hitting 6-iron out of the fairway. I’d rather hit 6-iron out of the fairway.”

Three decades later, thanks to golf statisticians from Mark Broadie to Scott Fawcett to Lou Stagner, that thinking has been turned on its head. And younger players from Bryson to Berkshire are believers in newer numbers, most notably Broadie’s strokes gained metric, which better quantifies how much each shot is worth during a tournament.

Broadie has mathematically proven how valuable long tee shots are—even if they don’t find the fairway. The list of major champs over the last three decades makes an equally compelling case. Beginning with John Daly in 1991, a Grip-It-And-Rip-It Era was ushered in.

Since then, Daly, Davis Love III, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Bryson DeChambeau have all captured at least one major while leading the tour in driving distance at least once. Tiger Woods could have easily been another, but even though he had the length, Woods often purposely laid back off the tee more than his peers.

So, yeah, not exactly the kiss of death.

Being conservative is not an option in Long Drive. Hitters get six to eight attempts to crank a golf ball as far as possible. But while traditionally viewed as novelty performers, the reality is that most are actually very good players. And the line between a hitter and a tour pro has narrowed in recent years, especially with Long Drive equipment now having to conform to USGA standards.

With more televised competitions, the sport had become more mainstream—perhaps influencing the PGA Championship to bring back its own long drive competition in 2014 after a 30-year hiatus. In 2018, that contest was won by DeChambeau, who later went on to claim the biggest victory of his career by bombing his way around Winged Foot at the 2020 U.S. Open.

Although plenty of other players had pushed the game in that direction, it’s DeChambeau who has underscored the direct correlation between driving distance and tournament success. In gaining 20 yards to increase his average to 322 yards, he also became the PGA Tour’s leader in strokes gained driving. And Berkshire was paying close attention.

“Watching Bryson win the U.S. Open at Winged Foot was the moment I think, if I ever make it on tour, that’s the moment I’m going to go back to that started it all for me in terms of this drive,” Berkshire said. “He made every pundit and critic look like a complete jackass. And that appeals to me. That appeals to me very greatly. That’s something I really want to do is prove everyone wrong and prove everyone who believes in me right.”

One pundit who hasn’t been surprised by DeChambeau’s distance experiment succeeding is Chamblee. And the Golf Channel analyst uses a baseball analogy to explain why he won’t be shocked if Berkshire or another long driver finds his way to the PGA Tour.

“Imagine there were 40 guys who got together for kicks and they all threw it 120, 118 miles per hour, faster than the fastest in professional baseball. Well, that’s what’s been going on in the world of professional golf,” Chamblee says. “If we look at the longest drivers in professional golf, meanwhile there’s 50 or 100 or 200 guys that drive it miles longer. I mean, miles longer. They’re swinging 150 miles per hour, the best on the PGA Tour is 125 miles per hour. It would have been ludicrous to think that those pitchers wouldn’t have made their way into Major League Baseball or the moves they have wouldn’t have made their way. The fastest pitchers were in the majors. They were in the bigs. The fastest swingers are not playing at the highest level in golf. It’s crazy to think those moves won’t make their way into professional golf.”

Which is not to say Chamblee thinks Berkshire will have it easy. If anything, he can point to his own competitive career as an example of just how hard it is to make it on tour. While Berkshire never even cracked the starting lineup in college, Chamblee was an All-American at the University of Texas. And yet it still took him years to succeed at the highest level before ending his playing career with one PGA Tour win.

“This not just about who can lift the most weight in the gym,” Chamblee says. “This is about who can lift the most weight in the gym and who can play the best chess. Those are two different animals, but that’s what golf is. It’s not just power. It’s nuance and strategy. And patience.”

“That’s farther than the average tour driver.”@KyleBerkshire hit this 8-iron 302 yards. ?

(?:Instagram/@b_dechambeau) pic.twitter.com/KHDn9hU6FJ

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 13, 2020

Patience is one thing Berkshire seems to have. He says he’s “ahead of schedule” and has received encouragement to start playing from many, including DeChambeau. The two have become friends and the mutual admiration for each other was apparent during a recent meeting. Berkshire was impressed by DeChambeau’s gym routine while Bryson was blown away by Kyle’s distance, including a 302-yard 8-iron that went viral.

Although he doesn’t have a specific timetable on when he will start entering tournaments, he plans to start small with Florida mini-tour events even though he could likely use his long drive stardom to get a few starts on the PGA Tour. Again, the goal isn’t just to play against the best, but to eventually be one of the best.

“If I emailed every event I could asking for an exemption, it’s very probable I wouldn’t have to write too many before I would get one,” Berkshire says. “But I want to make sure I make this entrance the right way. I don’t want to shoot 80-80 and get blown away. I want to go out, I want to make a statement. . . . I’ll know when I’m ready.”

With what he calls a potential “miraculous” path through familiar qualifying sites, Berkshire has made qualifying for the 2021 U.S Open at his favorite course a first—and lofty—goal.

“I can tell you right now, the first hole at Torrey Pines is a driver hole,” Berkshire says. “There’s nothing more I’d love to do than hit a 360-yard opening salvo that carries that bunker and leaves me 80 yards left. That’s what I’d love to do and that’s what I’m trying to make happen.”

—————-

JAKARTA, INDONESIA – OCTOBER 09: Jamie Sadlowski of Canada plays a shot during round four of the BNI Indonesian Masters presented by Zurich at Royale Jakarta Golf Club on October 9, 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Photo by Arep Kulal/Asian Tour/Asian Tour via Getty Images)

Jamie Sadlowski thought he was ready when he decided to pursue his own tour pro dreams in 2016. The Canadian nicknamed “Super Freak” had won a 2016 U.S. Open local qualifier and even made some cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour. In many ways, he is the closest comparison to what Berkshire is attempting. But there are also several important differences.

Although both won World Long Drive titles at young ages, Sadlowski eventually put in more than a decade competing and doing as many as 80 corporate events a year. Unlike Berkshire who has only been doing long drive for three full years, he was burned out and decided to completely walk away from the sport. Also unlike Berkshire, the 2008 and 2009 World Long Drive champ thought shifting to tournament play required him to re-tool his golf swing.

“Things have changed, Bryson has changed so much now just in the last year,” Sadlowski says. “We were always of the opinion that you can’t do both, it’s impossible. But now the more you read, the more you see what these guys are doing, you see Tony, you see Bryson, you see Rory, DJ, all these guys what they’re doing. I had that, I owned that, and I changed it.”

In hindsight, Sadlowski says his struggle to make it on tour can be traced to him going from being “a doer to a thinker.” But it’s also a reflection of the difference in pacing between a long drive competition and a golf tournament. One requires you to peak for three minutes at a time, the other stresses focus over four long rounds. After making just $11,000 over three seasons on Canada’s Mackenzie Tour and failing to make the weekend in both of his PGA Tour starts, he’s hoping a return to his athletic instincts will help.

“It’s a different transition when you’re programmed to do something,” Sadlowski says. “It’s like teaching a sprinter to be a long-distance runner. They’re the same, but they’re different. You have a different mentality about them.”

A final key difference between Sadlowski and Berkshire is that Sadlowski never had much of a foundation as a tournament golfer. Like the movie character Happy Gilmore, Sadlowski was always focused on his first love: hockey. That’s where Berkshire may have an edge, even if all his tournament experience came on the junior level.

Sadlowski and Berkshire just missed overlapping on the long drive circuit so they don’t know each other, but both are very familiar with each other’s careers. And in seeing some of the playing videos Berkshire posts to social media, the 32-year-old Sadlowski is particularly impressed—and also perhaps a bit envious—that Berkshire brings the same swing that made him a long drive champ to the golf course.

“I would tell him don’t change anything,” Sadlowski says. “You know, putt, chip your butt off, and learn how to flight some wedges, flatten shots out. And why not? If there’s any time to be inspired, it would be now from how much the game has changed in just the past six to eight months. And I sit here in Canada, shaking my head I’m like, ‘what has happened?’ You know, before it was, we’re going to shorten the backswing up and get it in play a little more. Yeah, that’s important stuff, but it’s also important to hit it 400 yards.”

That last point seems so obvious, but again, prioritizing distance over accuracy goes against long-held conventional wisdom. As someone well versed in the game’s modern metrics, though, Berkshire knows the importance of distance as well as anyone.

“I don’t have to have everything firing on all cylinders, I don’t have to be making more 20-footers than everybody else, I don’t have to be avoiding trouble off the tee every time to stay with people,” Berkshire says. “I can hit a loose shot off the tee here or there, I could three-putt maybe once or twice more than most guys could, I can miss the green with a wedge in my hand here or there and still be OK because again, the statistical advantage of me being 50 yards ahead of someone off every hole or even being able to hit an iron off the tee when they’re hitting driver the same distance, that accuracy advantage of an iron has over a driver, that’s very significant, so I have a wider path to walk.”

So how good of an actual golfer is Berkshire? He says he’s back to his peak form of being a plus-four handicap, but the goal is to get to at least a plus-six before truly testing his game in a pro event.

Obviously, a lot of that improvement will have to come in the short game, which is why Kyle has spent approximately 80 percent of his practice time within 150 yards in recent months. Even the worst chippers and putters on the PGA Tour have elite touch. His swing coach Najar estimates Berkshire is a plus-two handicap as a putter on a good day and that’s not good enough. Yet.

As for his full swing, Berkshire doesn’t need an overhaul, but in an effort to tighten his dispersion, he has been working with Najar on honing what he calls a “pull cut.” The shot will make him shorter, but it’s a move that would help eliminate a two-way miss. That’s also why he’ll probably use a 45-inch driver instead of the 48-inch one typically used in long drive competitions.

“I think his biggest challenge is controlling his club speed,” Najar said. “Let’s just say he’s swinging at 140. To take a swing at 60 miles per hour is pretty extreme as far as going the other way. Being able to be soft with your grip, being able to just lightly clip the ball off the ground when you have adrenaline. So I think controlling his adrenaline, I think learning to vary his speeds, those are the big challenges.”

Berkshire says he’s working on putting more backspin on the ball to make it go straighter. He’s also been collaborating with Callaway on a 2-iron that he can hit farther than most PGA Tour pros hit their drivers.

Even taking something off his fastball, Berkshire has been comfortably swinging at about 140 miles per hour in practice rounds. By comparison, DeChambeau leads the PGA Tour at 133 miles per hour, 20 miles faster than the tour average. And while Berkshire knows distance will be his biggest physical advantage, he’s also hoping it will give him a mental edge.

“I know PGA Tour players are some of the most mentally strong players in the world, that’s why they get there,” Berkshire said. “But I can’t help to think it’s got to affect some of them if I’m 60, 70 yards past them.”

Berkshire’s speed could cause some huge misses, especially if there’s a sudden shift in wind. But when it comes to talent and potential, well. . .

“There are times, where I’m telling you,” Najar says, “This guy, he has shots that I’ve never seen anyone else hit.”

———————-

Rob Carr

The old axiom, “You drive for show, you putt for dough” has long been disproven. Just look at this past season’s PGA Tour money list, which is filled with big hitters from Bryson to DJ to Rory. By contrast, only one of the tour’s top 10 putters, according to strokes gained, finished in the top 22 in the money. That player? Bryson DeChambeau.

“I’d say the world of golf has been working on their doctorate,” Chamblee said. “It started with Tiger, then came the money, then came the interest, then came the athletes, and now has come the knowledge. And you know, their dissertation is Bryson DeChambeau because he’s put together added length with an understanding of how to use that length on a golf course and plot his way around. But then the caveat, that Brodie has always offered, “all things being equal,” all things aren’t equal with Bryson because he became a much-improved putter. And that’s the name of the game so he’s done it. It’s been this 23-24-25-year education in the world of golf. And it’s not done at all.”

Perhaps it’s Berkshire who will author the next defining chapter in the game, but despite his seemingly superhuman length, he’s got a long way to go—especially after taking such an extended break while contemporaries like Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and even DeChambeau have become established PGA Tour stars.

No one on the PGA Tour can hit it anywhere near as far as Kyle can, but they’re miles ahead when it comes to mastering all the shots you need to compete at the highest level. If Berkshire never makes it there, though, Najar notes it won’t be due to a lack of effort.

“Everybody out there’s working hard, but I would say he obsesses over golf 24/7,” Najar said. “With anything and everything he can do whether it’s what he can do in the gym, what he’s eating, how to visualize, equipment optimization, so he’s really committed. And he’s got a genius mind for thinking of combinations.”

Speaking of that mind, Berkshire is also reuniting with famed sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella, whom he worked with during his junior golf days. It’s all part of helping Kyle adjust from one type of competition to another.

Not that Berkshire hasn’t faced pressure in long drive. On his way to winning the 2019 World Long Drive Championship, Berkshire was down to his final ball in the round of 16 after missing the grid with his first seven attempts. He responded by pumping a draw 426 yards, 420 of that in the air, to advance.

But as his long drive coach Bobby Peterson says, tour golf brings with it a different dynamic. Remember even World No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot a pair of 80s at the Memorial just a few months before winning the Masters.

“And I think that’s another learning lesson that’s waiting for Kyle is the ups and downs of that,” Peterson said. “Because right now he’s one of the top guys or the top guy in long drive and where’s he going to be at in golf? So how he handles that as a person hopefully will help him grow just in general as a person because adversity seems to lead us or destroy us and I think it will lead him because he’s that motivated to get better at things.”

And while he’s got the time and money to pursue a second career right now, being a tour pro is expensive. As Chamblee says, you only have so much time until the wolf is at the door. But Kyle claims the experience going to be worth it—no matter the results.

“My hope is that it gets big enough and positively impacts a lot of people one way or the other,” Berkshire said. “If people like laughing at me for shooting an 80, I mean, then that’s good. If people love watching me because I shot a 67 and lit the course on fire, then that’s good. I think a lot of positives will come from it regardless. I think that’s definitely the best part about it. It’s kind of a win-win for everybody, quite frankly.”

If you’ve watched any of Berkshire’s videos, you’d probably agree. Kyle’s patented pre-shot rocking motion disappears when he’s hitting shots on the course vs. the grid, but the jaw-dropping power is still there.

The guy can hit a putter over 300 yards, hit stingers that would make Tiger Woods drool, and he routinely takes apart long holes with ease. In one video, Berkshire comfortably reaches Firestone Country Club’s famed 667-yard par-5 16th hole, known as “The Monster,” with a driver and a 3-iron to set up an easy two-putt birdie.

As entertaining as those videos are, though, Berkshire wants to be much more than a sideshow in professional golf. In hearing him discuss his goals of making it on tour, it’s clear the risk of not going for it is greater than trying and coming up short.

“I mean business,” Berkshire said. “I’m not doing this to have fun. I’m not doing this to just goof around. I mean every bit of this. If I’m pursuing this, it’s because I want to be in the final group on Sunday. It might happen, I don’t know if I can get good enough, but I sure as hell not going to say that I can, because I think I can. And I’m going to do the things that I need to do to the best of my ability with the team around me that I have which I’m very confident in. I think it can lead to some pretty crazy stuff and the only way we can know is if I try.”

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Brandel Chamblee draws wild Brooks Koepka comparison, is in major-week form

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 20:25:31 +0000

By Christopher Powers
For those of us not on site, one of the sneaky best parts of major championship weeks is Golf Channel’s “Live From” show. It’s a cross between “Inside the NBA on TNT” and ESPN’s “First Take.” A wonderful mix of sharp, stats-based analysis and fiery hot takes that have led to on-set explosions. The difference: many of the past on-set explosions are real, as opposed to the staged ones you see on ESPN and FS1.

“Live From” has pitted Brandel Chamblee against David Duval, against Frank Nobilo, against Justin Leonard and sometimes, even against host Rich Lerner. The one constant, of course, is Chamblee, who makes plenty of sense about 85 percent of the time. But we all tune in for the 15 percent of the time he’s on Mars while his co-analysts are back on earth.

On major weeks, Chamblee always brings his A game in both areas. His statistical analysis is often spot-on, but when he breaks out a narrative-based take he’s come up within his brain, you simply must pause the TV and gather everybody around it. This one from Wednesday would fall in that bucket:

Simply exquisite. It’s only Wednesday and Chamblee is drawing comparisons between Brooks Koepka and Dirk freaking Nowitzki. Just wait until Saturday night, when Brandel discusses whether or not Tony Finau has “the clutch gene.”

Now, to be fair, Chamblee’s comparison wasn’t completely off base. If you have the time, go check out the full breakdown. But for now, I tried to pick out the best excerpts.

“Brooks Koepka has only won five percent of his PGA Tour events, but he’s three times the player in majors,” said Chamblee. “Now, there’s a lot of ways you can break that down – the best stat available is strokes-gained, because it’s a relative stat and it takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of the field.

“Pretty much every single major championship he plays in, he’s a different player than he is in regular tour events. And you sit here and you sort of rack your brain to try and come up with another tour player who was like that, I couldn’t really do it. I’ve started to look at other sports, and there was one player that stuck out. There is a fella by the name of Dirk Nowitzki, and Dirk Nowitzki was one player in regular season games and a completely different player in the playoffs. On average, he scored higher in points, rebounds, assists, steals blocks. All the way across the board.

“When you look at Brooks Koepka, there are four mained strokes-gained categories. In the six majors I just mentioned – that’s 24 stats – he was better 21 of 24 times than he was the rest of the year. He’s Dirk Nowitzki.”

OK, not bad. I may have gone with Andy Pettite, Bernie Williams or Derek Jeter, but that’s just the Yankee homer in me.

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Brooks Koepka is getting really good at darts thanks to his Brandel Chamblee dartboard

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 17 May 2020 02:08:53 +0000

By Alex Myers
Brooks Koepka seems to have sharpened his darts game during quarantine. A motivational target to toss at hasn’t hurt.

As we’ve seen throughout “The Last Dance” docuseries, great athletes like Michael Jordan can take criticism and use it to their advantage. But while MJ often embellished or even imagined slights against him to fuel his competitive side, Koepka has plenty to draw on from Brandel Chamblee.

Among other things, the Golf Channel analyst has ripped Koepka for losing weight for the ESPN Body Issue, questioned if he purposely stood in Rory McIlroy’s line of sight during a tournament, and declared last May that only McIlroy and Dustin Johnson could challenge a healthy Tiger Woods. Shortly after, Koepka won the PGA Championship thanks in part to an opening 63 that prompted Chamblee to say “I felt like he was giving me the finger for four-and-a-half hours today.” Poor Brandel. Even when he defends Tiger, he finds a way to piss someone else off.

Anyway, Koepka hasn’t been giving Chamblee the finger, but rather some darts to the face. Check out his funny dartboard setup—and impressive form:

Brooks’ dartboard is something else. ?

(?: Instagram:@BKoepka) pic.twitter.com/ihnPFMOSlx

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) May 14, 2020

Well ~~played~~ tossed, Brooks. And Chamblee fired back with a nice response of his own:

Must be a major week… he hit the target.

— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) May 15, 2020

Good to see this feud is still in mid-season form.

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David Leadbetter’s open letter to Brandel Chamblee: You’re better than cheap shots

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 07:39:09 +0000

By David Leadbetter
It’s sad how a person of influence in the golf world like Brandel Chamblee can spew out some of the nonsense that he does.

Brandel was a journeyman tour player and has moved on to become a highly regarded TV pundit, at least in some quarters. His controversial comments can at times be quite refreshing, but personal attacks on people, players at times, and in this case, coaches, are cheap shots just meant to further his reputation as an outspoken analyst. I doubt that Brandel has ever given a golf lesson of any note in his life. I certainly have not heard of any tour players running around singing his praises as a coach.

Brandel should realise the time, passion, study, commitment and the amount of devotion that coaches put in to help their students succeed. I say this because I and my assistant Adam Schreiber spent countless hours in the late ’80s and early ’90s on the range helping Brandel to try to reach his goals. It certainly was not for the money, as I think the check is still in the mail.

Should there be some criticism of coaches? Absolutely. But that’s the same in any profession. I have faced criticism over the years, some justified and some not. It comes with the territory. I would say on balance, though, having taught seven World No. 1 players and players who have won 23 majors, that I would consider myself to have had a fairly successful career.

I’m with many of these coaches at tournaments, and although I do not necessarily agree with all of their philosophies, I can assure you there is not a more dedicated group of individuals who mainly do it for the love of it, and not the financial rewards.

So I would say to Brandel, in the future, before you are so quick to criticize, take time to research what you are commenting on. Have the players had an injury, or any personal issues that are affecting their performance? Do they just need a different viewpoint after having been with their coach for so many years? Even great caddies get fired if a change of scenery is needed! Are the parents of the player interfering busy-bodies who won’t let the coach do the job despite a lot of success?

Coaching is a specialised art and takes many years of experience. Teachers play a huge role in player development at all levels. The problem with Brandel’s comments, maybe unwittingly, is that he tars all coaches with the same brush. His comments can have a highly detrimental effect on the game as a whole, because the many dedicated PGA professionals who help thousands of amateur golfers enjoy the game more, are all put in a negative light—which is totally undeserved and unnecessary.

So Brandel, you are articulate, knowledgeable and obviously love the game, but there is no need to fire a low blow toward, in many instances, people you know very little about. You are observing them from 10,000 feet, instead of joining them on the ground and finding out the real story, which is what your viewers are entitled to, not some self-serving comments, which are only half-truths at best. You are better than this, Brandel.

David Leadbetter is a longtime Golf Digest teaching professional.

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Brandel Chamblee’s latest inflammatory comments lead to pointed responses from top teachers

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:53:25 +0000

DUBLIN, OH – OCTOBER 04: Brandel Chamblee is seen on the set of The Golf Channel during the second day of play at the Presidents Cup on October 4, 2013, in Dublin, Ohio. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

By Matthew Rudy
If Brandel Chamblee was looking for an outlet to relieve some of his virus-induced social isolation this week, he found it.

The Golf Channel commentator used a two-part Golfweek interview to light golf coaches on fire, claiming (among other things) that “teachers are being exposed for their idiocy,” and that the flawed teaching philosophies permeating PGA Tour practice areas are ending more careers than they help. He proceeded to say that the teachers spreading those philosophies are being “bitch-slapped by reality” and the wisdom of crowds on social media and YouTube. “There it is. You’re wrong and they’re right.”

The airing of grievances continued with a dismissive wave at Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers list, as Chamblee continued: “I go look up all their players and then see are they better or worse? I go online, I look at their ideas and some of them crack me up.” He had a specific takedown of Jordan Spieth and his coach, Cameron McCormick, and Rickie Fowler for his decision to start working with a new coach in John Tillery.

Claude Harmon III falls into the former category, having handled the week-to-week tour work with Fowler for three years in tandem with his father, Butch Harmon. The younger Harmon said he admires Chamblee’s television skills but dismissed the wave of anti-instructor comments as a wrestling-style storyline designed to produce heat and attention.

“I worked at Sky TV for four years doing what Brandel does, and it’s brutal how hard that job is,” says Harmon, who coaches Brooks Koepka. “Brandel is a television character. He’s an actor. He has a role he performs, and he does a great job at it. Brandel is a thinker, and he does a lot of research. He’s 100 percent entitled to his opinions. But when it comes to talking about the swing and about golf instruction, it’s hard to take him seriously. He doesn’t give lessons, or have a body of work to evaluate.”

Chamblee was pointed and specific in his critique of Spieth’s swing, comparing video of swings from 2015 and today, and essentially calling teaching malpractice on McCormick for what Chamblee characterised as balance issues in Spieth’s swing.

“Why would his teacher tell him to change that? Why? He’s either being told to do that or whoever’s watching him doesn’t see that he’s doing that,” said Chamblee. “That would take two seconds to fix.”

McCormick declined to comment on the critical remarks, but Claude Harmon said Chamblee’s volley reminded him of last April, when Chamblee torched Koepka ahead of the Masters for changing his body to prepare for an ESPN photoshoot.

“It takes two minutes to call somebody’s agent to reach out, or, better yet, to walk over to Brooks or to me or to anybody else on a practice range and say what you want to say or ask questions to get some more information. Or, you can sit at 35,000 feet and criticize,” says Harmon. “The Spieth stuff? The problem is that I never see Brandel in the world I live in. Gary Koch comes and stands on the range for hours, just watching. And if he thinks he’s going to talk about a player, he asks questions so he can get details and context. The only time I’ve even seen Brandel at a tour event is in a cart, getting driven back and forth from the media compound.”

Harmon wasn’t the only teacher to bristle at Chamblee’s characterizations. Michael Breed started his SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show on Thursday with a fastball high and tight, calling Chamblee’s comments sour grapes for his own shortcomings as a player. “What you’re really hearing is a guy who was frustrated he didn’t perform at the level he thought he should have performed at,” said Breed. “And it has to be somebody’s fault. It can’t be mine, so it has to be a coach or a teacher. Maybe you just weren’t that good.”

Chamblee has been outspoken about how “modern” golf instruction has robbed players of the natural athleticism they could be using to play better—and has said he was one of those victims—dropping off the PGA Tour in the early 2000s after almost a decade of consistently good play and one victory. It led to him writing his 2016 book, The Anatomy of Greatness, in which he said amateurs would be better off modelling what historical champions did instead of blindly following modern swing theories.

Tour coach Terry Rowles says Chamblee obscured the truth in some of what he said—that players can be hurt by ineffective coaching—with uncharacteristically clumsy language. “I know Brandel enjoys classic literature, and I know he knows that words have power. It sounded like a generalized, ranting cheap shot,” says Rowles, who works with Aaron Baddeley.

“Do some players take too much? Yes. Do some coaches give too much? Yes. It’s hard to balance the give and take precisely all of the time. Humans are messy. The same information that saves one player would ruin the next. How does that fit in with what you would see on YouTube? Only somebody who has never coached would say it was all easy and obvious.”

That was where Harmon left it, too. “My job would be so much easier if I could just give opinions in a vacuum, but my opinions have consequences. His don’t,” Harmon said. “Brandel is in the opinion business. I’m in the results business.”

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Watch Brandel Chamblee go OFF on Premier Golf League

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 20:49:09 +0000

By Alex Myers
The last thing the PGA Tour wants during the week of its flagship event is to have people talking about a potential rival golf tour. But the Ponte Vedra Beach brass can’t be too upset that a damning sound bite directed at the Premier Golf League by one of golf’s loudest voices is making the rounds ahead of the 2020 Players Championship.

On Tuesday night, Brandel Chamblee praised Rory McIlroy for his recent comments that he wants “to be on the right side of history” when it comes to the proposed PGL and that “the more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t like it.” But the NBC/Golf Channel analyst also ripped the possible rival league himself, specifically for having financial backing tied to Saudi Arabia.

Here’s what Chamblee said during Golf Channel’s “Live From The Players”:

Rory has the audacity to sort of go it alone. One further note, Rory is no longer using the green-reading book. So he’s alone on the range. He’s alone on the greens. And he is also alone in his rebuff of I think one of the most important decisions that has come before PGA Tour players since they broke from the PGA of America back in 1968. And that was primarily about autonomy. But Rory’s rebuff of the PGL, well, yeah, it was about autonomy, but more than that, far more than that, it was about integrity. Rory had the audacity to question where the money for the PGL was coming from, as if you should care where the money is coming from. If water is flowing downhill from a sewer, and philosophically, the place where this is coming from is the sewer of philosophical ideals—this is where they kill apostates, this is where they put homosexuals in bags and throw them off roofs, this is where they chop up journalists if they don’t like what they say. So philosophically, this is the sewer—if water is flowing downhill from a sewer, and because the volume is so great that its contamination is diffused such that you can’t really tell that it’s contaminated and everybody’s telling you to take a drink. Rory stands alone in saying, “Don’t drink the water; it’s contaminated.” What he did there, that is far more rare, and far more important, than his talent is. His talent entertains us. And as rare as his talent is, you see that occasionally. But to see that talent, that kind of talent accompanied with this social awareness and this philosophical precocity, if you want to call it that, that’s out of this park.

PGL CEO Andrew Gardiner recently told Golf Digest, “The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is incredibly passionate about golf and its future, and I’m delighted to have them involved.”

Of course, it should be noted that Chamblee works for NBC/Golf Channel, which broadcasts PGA Tour events and just signed an extension through 2030. Still, that was quite a strong statement. Here’s video of Chamblee’s impassioned 90-second monologue:

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