Tag: Brandel Chamblee

Brandel Chamblee Q&A: Commish for the day, does he really believe everything he says & Cancel Culture

Chamblee dishes on the distance debate and being on the other end of criticism, and why he’s not afraid to take the contrarian view.

Whether you love him or hate him, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee makes good TV with his sharp opinions and willingness to criticize the best players in golf. In Part I of our latest Q&A, Chamblee discussed the struggles of Rickie Fowler and the winless drought of Tony Finau and we did a deep dive into the U.S. Ryder Cup and future options for the captaincy. You can read it here.

In Part II, Chamblee explains how he’d change course setups,  dishes on the distance debate and being on the other end of criticism, and why he’s not afraid to take the contrarian view.

Golfweek: If you were Commissioner of the PGA Tour for the day, what would you change?

Brandel Chamblee: The first thing I’d do is get rid of the top-50 exemption and then I’d get rid of the top-25 exemption. There’s no place for safety nets in sports. Those take up spots. However many it is, it’s too many. It should be a merit-based sport.

Every time someone new pops up on our radar, like Will Zalatoris, everyone says it is great to see a new young player come along that seems to be fearless and, yes, I agree. But every time that happens, I think someone just lost their job. If Will Zalatoris comes along and you can’t compete with him, you should lose your job. There should be no guarantees. Why does golf provide safety nets? No other sport does. You can go down to the minor leagues like the rest of the world does and fight your way back.

Will Zalatoris holds the trophy after winning the TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes on Saturday, July 4, 2020. (Kevin Lytle/The Coloradoan)

GWK: That’s your thing? You wouldn’t change course setup or pick different courses?

BC: That would be the day after I take away those exemptions. Actually, it’d be the same day because it would take me two minutes to say, I’m sorry, those exemptions are over. That would be more difficult to do because you’d have to go to a board and that board would have to present these and if I had autonomy, and I don’t think the commissioner position works that way, but I might take a detour down to the course setup guys and say, the fairways have to be wider, the rough has to be thicker, but only in a certain number of events.

There are events where long tee balls and recovery shots from the rough is exciting. I get it. If I were running a Tour event 20 years ago, I would’ve cut the rough too. I would want Tiger and Phil to be in contention on Sunday and the best way to ensure that is to cut the rough because they drove it all over the place. I understand why they did it. But to identify the best player and for the best future of the game is to restore the value of finding fairways.

To do that you can’t do what the USGA did at the U.S. Open. You can’t do that with 1980s-width fairways and 1980s-height rough. That’s stuck in thinking from 40 years ago. You have to extrapolate to dispersion cones with 310 yard drives, which means the fairways need to be 5-6-7-8 yards wider but the rough has to also be 2-3-4 inches taller. You can’t have the same width and height rough as you did in 1984 because guys didn’t swing as hard and didn’t come in as steep. The rough has to have a penalty to have a penalty of .5 as opposed to .2 or .3. You have to get the rough up to 4-5 inches and it needs to be thick and if it is 5-6 inches all the better.

But the fairways need to be wide enough to where the straightest drivers of the ball can find them so they can offset their disadvantage. That seems pretty straightforward to me. What else are you going to do?

GWK: Do you believe everything you say on air?

BC: (Laughs) Yeah. There are times when I change my mind, when I will think about it or come across information, but I’ve sat in meetings before where someone has said if someone is going to say this can we get someone to speak to the other side of it, and on issues where I’m sort of ambivalent I’ll say, yeah, I’ll take the other side. Happy to do it.

More often than not it, it doesn’t work out that way. You want to speak to an issue 360 degrees. By the time I say something on the air, I’ve thought about it, I’ve researched it and thought of counters to it, but yeah, I’ve certainly changed my opinion. I’ve done it on the distance debate. I think you should constantly take your opinions out, kick ’em around, beat ’em with a broom, and see if they stand up to scrutiny. I’ve tried to do that as often as I can. I’ve done that with teaching, the golf swing, the putting stroke. I’ve changed my view on a lot of things where I’ve come across information that proved me to be wrong, informed me in a better way. Yeah, I’ve said things on the air that I wouldn’t say now, that I disagree with now, that I wish I’d never said, but for the most part I try to be very, very careful about the words I use and the opinions I have.

GWK: What does your mailbox of feedback look like from viewers? What do you learn from it and what’s the general pros and cons?

BC: We live in a very critical world now. I’m not oblivious to criticism. I’ve always said you should be able to be criticized and complimented and never feel any way about either of them. When criticism comes from the right people and the right sources, when it’s valid or there is a grain of truth to it and you can learn from it and I take it to heart. I certainly pay attention to critics whose opinions I value and don’t have an ax to grind with my position on things. It’s amazing, I’ve gotten along with so many people in this game forever but the fact that I differ with them on the distance report, it’s almost like within the golf world you’re voting for Trump or Biden.

People feel that passionately about the distance issue with the USGA and R&A. I’m not sure I feel as adamantly against the rollback as people think I do. I just think that it seems that all the people that are in the architecture industry are for a rollback and I think the more difficult argument is why the game is better left alone.

I enjoy the more difficult argument. I enjoy trying to get to the bottom and to the truth of things but I tend to think that the most popular view doesn’t have a great record on a lot of things. It’s quite often wrong. So, I think, how is it wrong? I go and do research to discover if it is right or wrong, and try to figure a way to counter. That’s fun. I’ve always said we make progress by disputation and argument. That’s why the First Amendment is so important and the cancel culture is so bad. When you make arguments, they are never perfectly formed. Ever. They are imperfectly formed. You state an opinion and inevitably someone will know something that you don’t or think about it in a way that you don’t and will point out the errors in your opinion and so you reconvene and you try to make a better opinion, a more informed opinion and you stumble towards your better self and your better ideas.

The Cancel Culture is so ready to hold people accountable for arguments that are not perfectly formed and not perfectly stated. Listen, there’s no place in the world for racism and bigotry but in a world where people are preaching tolerance they should have some tolerance for people who make a mistake here or there for their phrasing of an argument. That’s why the First Amendment is so important. We should all take a deep breath.

There’s the idea of the straw man. The opposite should be the case. You should make a steel man out of your opponents’ arguments and ideas. You should try to formulate the most perfect idea of what someone is saying in the most perfectly stated verbiage to hold up their idea in its best essence and say I get what you’re trying to say and how is it assailable, how is it wrong? That’s how you get better at everything.

GWK: If you could require every player on Tour to read one book, what would it be?

 BC: I think the most important book I’ve read in informing me is Guns, Germs and Steel written by Jared Diamond. If school kids were made to read it in school, ignorance, bigotry and prejudice would be gone. I can hardly think of a more important book to read. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, every American should read that book. Those books right there just inform you about why man is the way he is, keep you on guard for the malevolence in men and gives you a great philosophical foundation to go learn, study or think about or talk about whatever you want to talk about.

I’ve never come across anyone smarter than Friedrich Nietzsche. If I can get on a soap box for a minute, I think this generation feels entitled to be happy. I think that’s a very dangerous thought. Friedrich Nietzsche has a great line that he who has a why to live can bear almost any how. If you have meaning in your life then you can deal with adversity and stumble towards your better self. It’s a marvelous philosophical precept. No one deserves to be happy. If you’re lucky, you can find something that gives meaning to your life, which will then allow you to be happy. It’s not happiness. It’s meaning, which allows you to deal with adversity. Adversity is everywhere. You deal with it every day in large and small capacities. Those are books that mean a lot to me.

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Brandel Chamblee Q&A: Why Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau aren’t winning; Team USA’s Ryder Cup captaincy flaws

Brandel Chamblee dishes on why Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau aren’t winning and fixing Team USA’s Ryder Cup captaincy flaws.

In an era of vanilla analysts towing the company line, Brandel Chamblee is the Neapolitan ice cream, with an opinion and yellow legal pad full of research to defend his arguments.

On the morning of the first round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Chamblee sat down with Golfweek to discuss the game he loves and some of the intriguing players who have been struggling to find the winner’s circle (we previously published his thoughts on Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose and Jason Day). Chamblee also launched his Ryder Cup campaign for Larry Nelson in 2023.

Check back for Part II on Tuesday, Feb. 16, where Chamblee discusses such topics including if he believes everything he says. Spoiler alert: his response begins with a chuckle.

Golfweek: What’s holding back Tony Finau from winning?

Brandel Chamblee: I get your question. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a player quite like Tony Finau. How can a player be world class if he doesn’t have victories on his resume? But everything on his resume is world class. It makes no sense. To see a guy play that well and that often and not come away with victories, you keep thinking it’s going to be like David Duval and at some point the windfall is going to happen.

Unlike David Duval, Tony’s not a great putter and unlike Duval he doesn’t drive it really straight. He’s long and a bit crooked. If you think about the greatest closers of all time, they all have great transitions to their golf swing bridging the backswing to the downswing. Tony’s quick. Pressure makes you quick, especially if you’re inclined to be quick anyway. Tom Watson famously said he never got over trouble on Sundays until he learned to slow things down. Finau has a short, quick golf swing. The most successful short, quick swing I can think of is Doug Sanders, who won a lot but never a major. It didn’t endure into his 50s. Finau is still young. It wouldn’t surprise me if he won three times this year. It wouldn’t surprise me if he won 5-6 times in his career. Again, he needs to find some way to be a better putter and a better player on Sunday. You look at his scoring average on Sundays and he’s a different guy.

GWK: Has Rickie Fowler missed his window to win a major?

BC: I don’t think so. He’s got a good coach (John Tillery) but I disagree with the philosophy that he’s coaching, which is more flex in his right knee. Kevin Kisner (another Tillery pupil) doesn’t hit the ball far, nor does Rickie. I cannot believe Rickie left Butch. Get on a plane and go to Vegas. He had a wonderful relationship with Butch. It’s a risk working with anybody. It could work out or it might not.

GWK: DJ or Rory in full flight…who ya got and why?

BC: If they both play their best golf, I think Rory beats him. Rory won majors by 8. DJ at this point in his career is winning tournaments by wide margins. I think it is very close. I’d love to see Rory play his best golf.

How many times have they gone head to head? WGC Mexico, DJ got the better of him. I remember seeing Rory shortly after that and he said when you run into someone playing that type of golf and you’re not playing as well you just can’t beat him. Think about Rory at the 2011 U.S. Open or 2012 PGA, that guy versus Dustin Johnson right now, I’d like to see that, I think Rory would win, personally, but it would be a hell of a battle.

GWK: Who will be the next player to reach World No. 1?

BC: Let me look at the World Rankings. I think Dustin has a pretty darn good hold on No.1 right now. The next will probably be Rory. He’d have to go on a tear this year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. I think Jon Rahm has the potential to be dominant at No. 1 and drop anchor there. You can just see it in his eyes. He doesn’t have kids yet. He’s about to but they’re not at that age where he’s coaching them in soccer and they’re looking at him with those eyes like where are you going daddy? That breaks your heart. I think the more intriguing question is who’s going to be No. 1 that has never been No. 1 before. Where is that guy?

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GWK: Do you think Team USA has figured anything out about its captaincy and grooming future leaders or just grasping at straws?

BC: I think they are still grasping at straws. I can appreciate that they tried to empower the players more, to give them more ownership of it. That was a well thought out transition to give the players more of a voice in but it doesn’t mean they should have autonomy to do whatever they want to do. For example, picking six players misses the point. It’s meant to be the best 12 players according to our system, not according to some click. It’s very clubby, very clickish and I don’t think it’s a good look for the team, for the PGA Tour. It should be based on merit not popularity, and the captaincy should be an obvious honor to some longtime player irrespective of their popularity. How was David Toms missed? How has David Duval been overlooked?

GWK: What do you make of Davis Love III being named 2021 Presidents Cup captain?

BC: Everyone loves Davis Love. There’s nothing not to love about Davis Love. But you shouldn’t be able to drop anchor in the position. There have been a lot of oversights in that position, Gene Sarazen, Larry Nelson. The nature of the Ryder Cup is the Europeans have better team chemistry. It’s as simple as that. I don’t know why Americans recoil at that idea. You show me the corresponding video of the American golfers putting together the angry golf video. It’s not a knock at the Americans as it is applauding the Europeans. It’s so good that they dominate the USA. On paper, the U.S. is better and so it infuriates the U.S. team and makes the Ryder Cup so interesting to watch.

GWK: Who would you like to see as Team USA’s captain someday?

BC: David Duval.

I’ve said this before, Larry Nelson should be the captain. If people want to say that he’s not relevant anymore, if you don’t know who he is, you should know who he is. The idea of respecting your elders is important and they should respect that he served his country, and respect the dignity that he brought to the professional game and his Ryder Cup record and how good he was at it and how happy he was to not only have fought for his country but then played for his country with distinction. That is worth correcting a mistake. He is still alive. Do you believe in karma? If you do it’s not hard to get to this is what the USA team deserves having so egregiously overlooked such a distinguished player and great man.

I’ve told the story before but the first day I ever spent on a golf course watching a PGA Tour event was the Byron Nelson in 1966 or ’67, somewhere in there, and I was sitting behind the first green at Preston Trail and this guy putted out and walked off and sat down next to me in the stands. He asked me if I was enjoying the golf. I told him I just started to play golf and that my dad had dropped me off and I was spending the whole day out here. He asked me if I wanted to play golf when I grew up and I said I want to play the Tour when I grew up. He said, maybe someday I’ll see you out here. That player was Larry Nelson.

Ten or 12 years later, whatever it was, I got paired with him at the Players Championship. He probably did that to countless kids, but that’s who he is. He didn’t do it gratuitously, he did it sincerely. He won three majors for crying out loud and was 9-0 in his first nine matches. Making him Ryder Cup captain would be the best feel-good, best thing that the Ryder Cup could ever do. From a karma standpoint it would be incredible and would properly tell his story and might be just the thing to turn around…you could say that the Hal Sutton-Jackie Burke old-school thing didn’t work. We too often give pass-fail grades to ideas based upon the results of competition when it shouldn’t play out like that. What’s the right thing to do? Who’s the most deserving captain? Who’s the most deserving player to give tribute to?

If you can find another player on the planet more deserving of the tribute of captaincy of the Ryder Cup than Larry Nelson, point him out. Where is he? He doesn’t exist. If he were 85 years old, he’d still deserve it and we deserve to know who he is and it rights a wrong. Beyond that, David Duval and beyond that David Toms.

It’s become so predictable. Phil Mickelson is going to get it, Tiger Woods whenever he wants it. Zach Johnson will get it. But who else? Who’s the Paul McGinley of the U.S.? He’s such a unique fellow in that he was good enough to qualify for teams but he was so sharp and so well respected. I’d be looking for the Paul McGinley on the U.S. side. This is why it can’t just be an autonomous, player run event, There needs to be someone in the room to say we need to find a Paul McGinley type player.

GWK: Justin Leonard would be in that same category.

BC: There it is. That’s your Paul McGinley.

GWK: Why are he and Duval no longer thought of for the role? Is it because they are doing TV?    

BC: Justin is still part of the club. I don’t know why he wouldn’t be being groomed. He made the putt that everyone remembers in 1999. He’s kind of a Paul McGinley. He’s a very thoughtful, quiet guy. A lot of the best coaches were not necessarily the best players but they had to think the hardest about it to get the most out of their talent. That’s who Paul McGinley was. It doesn’t really describe Justin because he was an extraordinary golfer. Besides Larry Nelson, besides David Duval and Justin Leonard, I’d be looking for the Paul McGinley to lead the U.S. team.

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Despite shooting 61, is Jordan Spieth still ‘headed for oblivion?’ Brandel Chamblee thinks so

Jordan Spieth shot 61 at the Phoenix Open, but Brandel Chamblee still says his inaccuracy off the tee has him “headed for oblivion.”

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On Thursday morning, as the Waste Management Phoenix Open began in earnest, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee was kind enough to sit for a Q&A on a wide-range of topics. We’ll post that soon, but it seems especially timely to post an excerpt of that discussion that focused on Jordan Spieth, the three-time major champion who has fallen on hard times.

When asked about Spieth, Chamblee said he was “headed for oblivion.” Strong words and worthy of further conversation after Jordan started doing things like the Jordan of old.

Here’s the initial conversation before Spieth shot 67-67-61.

GW: Which former World No. 1 gets back into the winner’s circle first: Justin Rose, Jason Day, or Jordan Spieth?

BC: That’s a good question. I don’t mean any ill will towards Justin Rose and Jason Day but I hope it’s Jordan Spieth. It probably will be Jason Day. But good question all three.

I see Jason Day winning again. Rose is a little older, he left Sean Foley, didn’t hit it particularly well last year, changed equipment. Victories are hard fought at his age when you’re not hitting on all cylinders.

Spieth is headed into oblivion. That’s hard to turn that ship around.

Waste Management Phoenix Open: Photos | Leaderboard | Tee times, TV info

Day is the more logical answer. Still has a great short game, still a great putter. Still has plenty of speed. He just needs to have a week where his body isn’t banged up or he isn’t sick. I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Short, violent, restrictive golf swings are injuries waiting to happen, especially when a guy is spending that much time amping up in the gym.

Q: You just said Jordan is “on his way to oblivion.” I take that to mean you see him getting worse rather than better.

BC: If you go back and look at Ian Baker-Finch and David Duval’s ascent and descent in the game of golf, they track a similar path to Jordan Spieth. When they get to a point where they are really searching and they get desperate there’s not only the insecurity of whether or not you’re ever going to find it again, there’s also that psychological scar tissue. It’s like a physical wound and some of them will heal up and some of them will kill you.

Ian Baker-Finch or David Duval, no disrespect to them, but the only reason I picked them out is they made the game look so easy for a period of time as did Jordan Spieth. Their descent is a reminder to all of us that it is ephemeral. You can lose it in the blink of an eye. He seems to be searching every single week, spending lots of practice swings, over the ball a long time.

Several hours later, Spieth teed off and fired the first of consecutive 4-under 67’s. When Spieth tied his lowest score on the PGA Tour with 10-under 61 in the third round, I reached out to Chamblee since his take didn’t seem to be aging well. He was highly complimentary of Spieth’s magical round but didn’t exactly walk his comments back. Here’s what Chamblee had to say after Spieth shot 18-under 195 to grab a share of the 54-hole lead at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Waste Management Phoenix Open
Jordan Spieth celebrates with caddie Michael Greller after making birdie at the 16th hole during the third round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports)

GW: Do you want to walk back any of your comments about Jordan since we talked the other day?

BC: What did I say? I can’t even remember. I wasn’t probably sanguine about his comeback.

He did something today I don’t think I’ve seen. I’ll go look it up. I can’t remember a person being in the lead position in a golf tournament being dead last in fairways hit and next-to-last in distance from the edge of the fairway. That’s unprecedented. I don’t know how you do that. I guess you can in a place like the desert where there is a lot of luck involved in the lies you get and then you hit your irons like a God. He still has the ability to stun us with his short game and putter.

As I chewed on it today, there are a handful of people who lost their edge. Sam Snead in 1947-48 he won only one time because he had the putting yips and then he won 17 times when he sorted that out the next two years in 1949-50.

Henrik Stenson was No. 4 in the world after winning the Players in 2009 and he fell down to No. 230 when he got the driver yips. I’m not saying Jordan Spieth has the driver yips but on your way to them you miss by wide margins in every direction. Stenson worked his way out of it. Steve Stricker was sort of the same thing. There are some notable players fairly recently and well in the past that have come out of these slumps fairly nicely.

It’s cool to see Jordan Spieth give some hope for a comeback. As inaccurate as he was in 2016-17, he was just a little wobbly off the tee, but he’s become hugely inaccurate, which is usually a prelude to an irrecoverable slump, at least for a period of time. It was the preamble for Ian Baker-Finch’s slump, it was the preamble to David Duval’s slump, it was the preamble to Ralph Guldahl’s slump. Those are slumps that players never recovered from.

He hasn’t solved his big misses but to see him step up on 15 and hit that draw with the water left after missing it to the left so often and at times by wide margins that speaks to his commitment. He said in his post-round remarks that he’s committed to being committed. That was a helluva quote. There’s no other place for him to go. If he loses his attitude, there’s no way back. I’ve never seen him slump his shoulders, I’ve never seen him throw clubs, I’ve never seen him use profanity, I’ve never seen him give the Heisman to people asking him tough-to-answer questions. I said today on our show that I’ve never seen anybody, except for maybe Chip Beck, handle really poor play with more class. It’s easy to pull for somebody like that.

Waste Management Phoenix Open
Jordan Spieth reacts after putting out on the 18th hole during the third round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports)

I guess I would say I’m a little more optimistic than the last time we talked. I still need to see him drive it better than he does. I don’t see how he can come back and play anywhere near the type of golf he used to play unless he drives it better. There’s a difference between driving it poorly and driving it terribly. There’s generally not much hope to contend when you’re driving it terrible.

If you think about it, it’s as exciting as anything watching a player of his caliber work his way out of a slump. Tiger has given us two comebacks on an epic scale. This isn’t on the same scale because he’s not dealing with a broken leg or a broken reputation or a darn-near busted back, but he’s dealing with a broken game. It’s as compelling as his good golf was, almost.

GW: Do you think shooting 61 validates what he’s working on?

BC: To some extent. Look, you have to have selective memory in this game. If I had driven it like him and I was leading I would be thinking all I have to do is hit it a little better and I can really make a move. He’s almost dead last in Strokes Gained: off the tee and dead last in driving accuracy. Only Brendan Steele is worse than him in distance from the edge of the fairway. He’s not just missing fairways, he’s missing them by a wide margin. For him to play as well as he has the first three rounds speaks volumes about his mental strength. Outside of Tiger, you’re hard-pressed to find another player more exciting to watch than Jordan Spieth.

The only thing I’ll say is when you see someone drive it as inaccurately as he did, it’s a trip to oblivion. Henrik Stenson and Steve Stricker came back from there. If I’m Jordan Spieth I’d look at what they did and use that as positive reinforcement that he can dig his way out of this hole.

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Schupak: 2020 was stranger than the morning sky in Napa during the Safeway Open

Senior writer Adam Schupak chronicles the moments that made covering the golf scene in 2020 a year unlike any other.

Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

I was staying in a boutique hotel in Brussels after the 2018 Ryder Cup when I read a quote on, of all things, a Trip Advisor ad that spoke to me: “Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

I looked it up and it’s attributed to Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Moroccan explorer and scholar. Those are words I’ve very much lived by covering 20-plus tournaments a year for more than a decade, which have taken me to far-flung places such as Singapore, China, Turkey, Israel, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The list goes on but you get the idea.

All of that came to a screeching halt in March when the PGA Tour and the golf world in general went on hiatus due to a global pandemic. I never left the country this year and avoided flying, well, like the plague. I don’t know about you but I haven’t exercised at a gym, gone to the movies, shaken hands or seen most of my family members, other than via Zoom calls, since March.

Plenty of love for Jordan Spieth at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in late January before the pandemic prevented fan attendance at most PGA Tour events (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

But there were a few early-season trips before the world changed that provided stories worth telling, including to the desert for the Waste Management Phoenix Open. It seems a lifetime ago that 20,000 drunk people ringed the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale like the Romans at the Coliseum. The highlight of that week was a wide-ranging discussion with Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee that exploded into a three-part Q&A.

From there, it was on to Pebble Beach, and it doesn’t matter how many times I visit the Monterey Peninsula, it never gets old. The weather even cooperated. I got to break bread with some of my favorite folks that week and squeeze in 18 at Pacific Grove and take a test spin around TPC Harding Park. One evening, I was packing up my belongings from the media center and ready to hit up a sushi joint I discovered during the previous year’s U.S. Open visit, when a local writer that I had been chatting with at breakfast stopped by my desk and invited me over to his house to join his family’s dinner. That was an incredibly kind gesture. Traveling to exotic locales to play or watch golf doesn’t suck, but life on the road isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Having a good home-cooked meal and better conversation hit the spot and I appreciated it even more when the world soon after went into lockdown.

In the year 2020, even Donald Ross was wearing a mask (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

I flew the red eye home from California and I’ll never know for sure if I had coronavirus or just the run-of-the-mill flu but I was as sick as I’ve been for a long time the next two weeks and even had to WD from covering the Honda Classic with a high fever. This was pre-masks, hand sanitizers and runs on toilet paper. What a year!

The other meal I can’t help but think of is the annual Asado night at The Players, held on the eve of the tournament. It began at the Masters and was co-hosted by Spanish golfer Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and the Argentine Golf Association. I remember one year telling Gonzo, who wasn’t yet eligible for the Masters, that he needed to win and a lot of people were depending on him so we could have asado. He smiled and told me, don’t worry, we’ll do Asado night at the Players if I don’t make the Masters. And that’s been the tradition ever since.

Hideki Matsuyama tied the TPC Sawgrass course record only to have the Players canceled later that night due to the global pandemic (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

It is a gathering of two-dozen or so golf industry leaders from Latin America and elsewhere (including R&A chief Martin Slumbers and his wife) with R&A regional director of Latin America Mark Lawrie as grill master. Held at their oceanside rental property in Ponte Vedra under a tent, it’s become one of my favorite nights of the year – I think I’m still full from all the beef, Argentine wine and dulce de leche – but it became memorable as the last big dinner party I’ve attended. After the ceremonial drive of a few glow balls into the ocean, I drove home just shortly before 10 p.m. and was greeted with news that the Tour had come to its senses and canceled the Players. Not long after, the Masters was postponed and we’d endure a 91-day hiatus before another tournament round was contested. Remember how desperate we were for live competition that we were watching marble races?

During these uncertain times, golf was my salvation. Living in Florida, the courses remained open – though the beaches shut down for a while – and so Gary Koch would have declared my quarantine was better than most. With some extra time on my hands I decided now was the time to learn to hit a baby cut. I’d only been playing a boomerang draw – I prefer not to use that other four-letter word – for 40 years. Trying to overhaul my swing by digging it out of the dirt Hogan style has been an adventure. I remember bragging that I had it down pat but when I went to play Palatka Golf Club with colleagues Julie Williams and Jason Lusk, I kept hitting left of left. It reminded me of the old Bugs Bunny skit where the singing frog only lets out a ribbit in front of a crowd. If you don’t know that one, check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsROL4Kf8QY

I recorded 75 18-hole scores in 2020, which doesn’t include some hit-n-giggle team events and that many of those rounds combined two evening nines. All told, I’m guessing I’m well over 100 days of golf this year. So, 2020 hasn’t been a total loss. My game is still fragile and for all the effort my handicap has gone down a whopping 0.4 strokes … but it didn’t go up this year, so I’ve got that going for me.

Camilo Villegas surprised members of the media with news that his daughter Mia had cancer during a tearful press conference (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

During the lockdown, I dove into the old Rolodex and did a series of Q&A’s (Quarantined and Answered) with some of my favorite talkers: David Duval, Sean Foley, Jim Furyk, Tony Jacklin, Vijay Singh, Charles Barkley, Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf. For all the Microsoft Teams and Zoom calls that helped us do our jobs, there’s no replacement for being present at a tournament and personal contact. So, I drove 12-plus hours with a pit stop at Sweetens Cove to cover the WGC St. Jude Invitational in Memphis and a Sunday duel between a resurgent Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, who had Jim “Bones” Mackay fill in in on the bag and paired with one Phil Mickelson and brother Tim. Yeah, I missed that.

The importance of simply being there couldn’t have been more evident a few weeks earlier when Camilo Villegas broke into tears at the start of his press conference ahead of the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass as he detailed that his 18-month old daughter, Mia, was battling cancerous tumors in her brain. A little more than a month later her fight was over. I was in Jackson, Mississippi in October when Villegas sat down with me and opened his heart about dealing with loss and how it was his mission to make something good come from Mia’s death. This time, I was the one holding back tears. To hear him talk about seeing one of Mia’s beloved rainbows on the first tee at the RSM Classic and contend for the title until Sunday was almost too good to be true.

Lisa Cink congratulates son Reagan on a job well done on the bag for his father Stewart Cink after his victory at the Safeway Open in September (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

But there was another feel-good story in the fall season that delivered a full payoff. Seeing Stewart Cink end his 11-year victory drought at age 47, and with his son Reagan on the bag, gave me all the feels. I remember speaking to Cink after his wife, Lisa, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, and here she was cancer-free, a one-woman cheering section for her guys at a spectator-free tournament as Stewart showed he could still close on Sundays. Color me inspired and thank you, Stewart, for these words I’m going to try to live by in 2021: “I just try to squeeze every little bit of juice I can out of my golf game, out of that lemon.”

Let’s all make some lemonade in 2021 out of the lemon that was 2020.

My favorite photo of 2020: Tiger Woods enjoys some quality father-son time watching Charlie practice after the first round of the PNC Championship from the comfort of his golf bag (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

Brandel Chamblee gives tour of Golf Channel’s Orlando studio before network moves to Connecticut

Brandel Chamblee gave a tour of Golf Channel’s Orlando studio before the network moves to Connecticut.

Since its creation in 1995, the Golf Channel has been based in Orlando.

In June, Golf Channel informed most of its Orlando-based staff the network would be moving its offices from Florida to Stamford, Connecticut – home of parent company NBC – later in the year as part of a corporate consolidation.

On his final day in the Golf Channel’s Orlando studio, Brandel Chamblee gave his Twitter followers a behind-the-scenes tour of the building before going on-air for the U.S. Women’s Open (where play has been suspended for the day). There’s more to see at the office than the studio set. Check it out.

Did Brooks Koepka get the bulletin-board material he craves from Brandel Chamblee to fuel another major moment?

Brooks Koepka has heard the undercurrent of remarks devaluing his major wins. Brandel Chamblee once again provided bulletin-board material.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Brooks Koepka is the mystery man coming into the 2020 Masters. While missing the FedEx Cup Playoffs and U.S. Open during a two-month layoff, Koepka underwent a second stem-cell treatment on his left knee and a cortisone injection in his hip and proclaimed himself healthy and ready to add to his collection of four major championship trophies.

“Everything’s fine. I feel normal. Knee feels good. Hip, I haven’t had an issue with. Nice to have those two months rehabbing in San Diego and getting everything straightened away,” said Koepka, who finished tied for 28th at the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek and shot a pair of 65s on the weekend to tie for fifth at the Vivint Houston Open last week.

Koepka expressed little regret for delaying his layoff so he could try to three-peat at the PGA Championship in May and try to qualify for the FedEx Cup in August. But he did say he wished he had work harder during his rehab from the first surgery.

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“I don’t want to say I was slacking, but I didn’t put the effort I needed to to rehab. And that’s on me, so I’ve got to live with that,” he said. “Just became lazy. Simple. I didn’t work hard enough, and kind of had to re-devote myself to working out in the gym, making sure that I’m getting better, because that’s the whole point of trying to get better. You’re not trying to stay the same.”

When asked if he felt as good as he did during the stretch of time when he won four majors in a span of nine played, Koepka said, “I feel just as good as I did at Bellerive (2018 PGA), Bethpage (2019 PGA), all those. Everyone, felt this good.”

Koepka has heard the steady undercurrent of remarks devaluing his major triumphs, and Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee once again provided all the bulletin-board material that he could ever need for this week.

Speaking on the Brandel Chamblee Podcast, he said of Koepka’s major success, “It’s a great accomplishment his run in the major championships but they were on wide open [courses], it was tennis without the net. Erin Hills, you cannot hit as many fairways as he hit at Erin Hills. Shinnecock same deal, very wide fairways. The misses weren’t punished because the greens were so soft.

The Masters 2020
Brooks Koepka putts on the 17th green during a practice round for the 2020 Masters Tournament at Augusta National GC. Photo by Michael Madrid/USA TODAY Sports

“Is he tough mentally? Heck, yeah. But to extrapolate from those wins that he has the best mind in the game of golf is overlooking the fact that the golf courses he won on were wide open and not necessarily as punishing as they should have been and as stressful as they should have been.

“When he’s on, his talent is immense. He is formidable. But, the only problem I have with anointing him with the same sort of reverence in terms of skill that we do Rory is because Rory has proven to be more consistent in the long haul and has less holes in his game. I value consistency as much as I do brilliance and Rory has both of them.”

Chamblee’s podcast co-host Jaime Diaz said, “I think he might take the ‘tennis without a net’ comment into the Masters.”

Indeed, he may. A year ago, Koepka opened with 66 at Augusta National and had a great chance to win the Masters until he rinsed his tee shot at No. 12 and made double bogey. He would go on to finish tied for second, one shot behind Tiger Woods.

“It was right there on Sunday,” Koepka said. “It was just my body wouldn’t let me do it.”

According to Koepka, that shouldn’t be an issue or an excuse this time. Could it be Round 3 of Koepka and Woods doing battle on Sunday at a major? Koepka got the better of his childhood idol at the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive. In April 2019, in his celebratory moment, Woods took the time to send Koepka a message that required little decoding.

“He said something walking off 18 last year, like, 1-1 now, something like that, so fair play to him,” Koepka said.

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Brandel Chamblee on Bryson DeChambeau’s distance gains: ‘Long and straight is the Giza pyramid’

Golf Channel analyst tells the ForePlay podcast that Bryson DeChambeau’s distance gains are real and they’re amazing!

Bryson DeChambeau’s incredible bulk and impressive distance gains are the talk of the PGA Tour since play resumed in June, and ratcheted up with his victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last month. Speaking on Barstool Sports’s Fore Play podcast, Chamblee, the outspoken Golf Channel analyst, weighed in on the evolution of DeChambeau’s swing and what it means for the future of the PGA Tour.

From a distance standpoint, Chamblee says it’s not unprecedented for the longest hitter to be nearly 30 yards longer than the Tour average. The difference is DeChambeau has been able to do it while hitting more than 60 percent of fairways rather than past bombers who found only 40-50 percent of fairways.

“Long and straight is the Giza pyramid. You look at that and say, how the hell can a guy do that?” Chamblee said.

While DeChambeau’s weight gain has garnered the most attention, Chamblee says the drastic changes DeChambeau made to his swing deserve the majority of the credit for his accuracy.

“It’s like Moneyball. Distance has become strategy. It’s not just some freakish accomplishment that people have and is mysterious. John Daly was a freak. Dustin Johnson is a freak. Bubba Watson is a freak. That’s how people always dismissed distance,” Chamblee said. “Here comes Bryson DeChambeau and there’s a before and after. Wait a minute, it’s not a freakish talent. He was the same guy last year and now he’s this much longer. There’s an actual strategy here and I love that he went and figured it out.”

“I’ll tell you another thing that is impressive,” Chamblee continued. “Imagine having a job that paid you $2 million a year…and you risked all of that by changing everything you were doing that allowed you to have that job. He was having fantastic success but he risked all of that – millions of dollars, being his own boss, an incredible way of life – that’s amazing. I just don’t know many Tour players who would do that. That’s an incredible risk, and he pulled it off.”

The question remains: How long can DeChambeau keep up his rigorous training schedule and will others be willing to adopt it?

“At some point, your priorities changes…life takes over. Do I have 16 hours a day to devote to a physical pursuit at the expense of every other connection I have with people? Not many people are going to do that. You laud him for it,” Chamblee said.

When asked how concerned he is that DeChambeau may end up getting hurt, Chamblee said, “I don’t worry about him injuring himself with his golf swing, but from a fitness standpoint, from a rest standpoint, and that’s well outside my area of expertise, but my friends who are experts in that area have looked at his form and question it. I’m less inclined to think he’s going to get injured because of the metamorphosis of his body than I was with Tiger or DJ or Brooks or Jason Day or Rory for a short period of time before he changed his training.”

You can listen to the full podcast with Chamblee here.

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Brandel Chamblee on Twitter: It ‘skews left’ and can be a ‘cesspool’

On the Golf Central Pregame Brandel Chamblee said Twitter has a propensity to “skew left” and can “be a cesspool if you’re on it.”

FORT WORTH, Texas — Rarely the week shall pass in which Brandel Chamblee doesn’t get his name into the headlines for an outrageous statement.

This week with the PGA Tour rebooting its season in Texas, where Chamblee played his collegiate golf, was no different.

During a segment on Saturday’s Golf Central Pregame before the second round of the Charles Schwab Challenge, the former University of Texas star was discussing Rory McIlroy when he veered in a different direction, talking about Twitter and its propensity to “skew left.”

Host Rich Lerner stopped Chamblee, who then elaborated:

“We live in an era where the negativism and the narcissism would make the Roman emperor Caligula smile,” Chamblee said. “So you need to arm yourself against that. Especially if you’re on social media because there are fabulous aspects of social media, there absolutely are, but it can also be … it’s been well-documented … it skews left and it can get to be a cesspool if you’re on it.”

Lerner again stopped Chamblee, asking to clarify what this meant, to which the lead studio analyst for the Golf Channel added:

“There’s all kinds of biases on Twitter. But mostly it’s used negatively. OK? It skews negatively. And it’s used in a lot of different directions, but none of them can be beneficial to you if you get on there.”

The audio is low, but here’s a snippet:

Of course, part of Chamblee’s charm is the bombastic approach to golf coverage he’s employed.

In March, he told Golfweek reporter Adam Schupak that golf instruction had been bitch-slapped into reality through the use of YouTube and other means. He later walked back the comments a bit, but maintained his position as one of the most controversial voices in the game.

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Jordan Spieth, ‘grateful for the time,’ recalibrates during golf’s layoff

Perhaps no one in professional golf needed a break to recalibrate after plummeting to No. 56 in the world.

Jordan Spieth is ready for a fresh start.

The three-time major champion and former World No. 1 was mired in the worst slump of his career before COVID-19 caused the PGA Tour to hit the pause button on the 2019-20 season.

Spieth hasn’t won since the 2017 British Open and dropped to No. 56 in the Official World Golf Ranking. With the PGA Tour set to resume its season Thursday at the Charles Schwab Challenge, a place where Spieth’s name is on the Wall of Champions (2016) and he’s recorded five other top-15 finishes at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Spieth is treating it like opening day.

“It would be nice if we could get like some fighter jets flying over the first tee shots, something like that, that you’d see at an opening day stadium, but yeah, it’s got a little bit of that kind of excitement to it,” he said.

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When he tees off in a group with Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas, it will have been 91 days since the PGA Tour season was suspended on March 12. Spieth, 26, said he enjoyed his extended time at home in Dallas and having his brother and girlfriend live with them for much of the layoff. He also used the break in his career for some good old-fashioned soul-searching.

“I looked at it as a big-time opportunity for myself and didn’t take it lightly. I was certainly grateful for the time,” he said. “Certainly it’s not a positive situation in general, but for me personally, I tried to look at how can I make this an advantage to myself.”

Golf Channel analyst and former University of Texas golfer Brandel Chamblee argues that perhaps no one may have benefited more from the downtime than Spieth.

“Because he was clearly struggling,” Chamblee said of Spieth who ranks No. 227 in driving accuracy and No. 221 in greens in regulation this season.

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“I believe that there’s intellectual power in solitude. I believe that Jordan Spieth would have been closer to finding that. It’s his genius that I think made him the player he was, with a little help from a coach,” Chamblee said. “And when I see the interaction between Jordan Spieth and his coach (Cameron McCormick) on driving ranges, it looks frantic. So perhaps 13 weeks off would have given him some time to sort of clear up his mind.”

Spieth said he treated the first month as he would the off-season and assessed how he played in the first five tournaments of the year. Using that as a framework, he started making a series of adjustments and began playing more.

Jordan Spieth signals to the crowd after his tee shot on the fourth hole screams right during the second round of the 148th Open Championship. Spieth ranks 227th in driving accuracy in 2019-20. (Matthew Lewis/R&A)

“It was a strong focal point of the last few months, how can I get better physically, mentally and within the mechanics of my golf game, and then what’s the right process to start to put that in place, and it’s not something that clicks and all of a sudden and you’re just automatically the best player in the world,” he said. “It’s certainly a process. But creating the right little habits that get me back on track was a big emphasis during the last few months.”

When asked to elaborate on some of those adjustments he’s made, Spieth held his cards close to his vest.

“It’s about getting the feel back, kind of finding it in the ground, finding what shots are uncomfortable and know how to figure out my tendencies because a lot of times when you’re on a driving range you can kind of really stripe it, and it may not be a total tell on what’s being produced on the golf course.”

Chamblee has heard Spieth claim that he’s figured out his faults before during the slump and says, “I’m looking forward to seeing if Jordan Spieth has sort of solved the riddle.”

“When you watch Spieth, there’s a sense that you’re watching an extraordinarily rare athlete,” Chamblee added. “Just the grit and the guile and the ability to devastate opponents with unbelievable shots. I mean, his last victory was the Open Championship in 2017, but I mean, pick a shot. There’s a half dozen on that final day that were unforgettable. And he did that so many times in his career so far.”

For Spieth, there’s no better place to resume the season than at Colonial, where he won in 2016 and ranks first in six different statistical categories at the tournament since 2013, including scoring (67.79). He said he’d like to regain his former form and make a run at earning a berth on the U.S. Ryder Cup team and excelling in the seven majors that are currently scheduled to be played in the next 12 months.

“Things are feeling better than they have in a while, but it’s not to say that everything is back to the best ball-striking I’ve ever had,” he said. “I know once things are feeling in control to me and the timing element kind of comes back into my game, the rest of it, the results will take care of itself.”

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Brandel Chamblee on how much Tiger Woods will be able to play: ‘It’s like his body is a wet grocery bag filled with jugs of milk’

Brandel Chamblee on Tiger: “It’s like his body is a wet grocery bag filled with jugs of milk. You just never know when it’s going to burst.”

Count Brandel Chamblee among those who wonder just how much golf Tiger Woods will play outside the majors.

Woods, who last played a PGA Tour event in February at the Genesis Invitational and skipped the Players Championship with back pain, did return for The Match on May 24, an 18-hole exhibition, but opted not to participate in this week’s PGA Tour re-start at the Charles Schwab Challenge.

“I think Tiger in his own way has sort of hinted that whatever events he’s going to play the rest of his career are going to be very minimal,” Chamblee said. “He, I think, is trying to stretch out his body, you know, the wear and tear on his body, and see how long he can be competitive in major championships. … I think he is being very cautious about wearing out his body.”

Woods, 44, had a fourth back surgery in 2017 that fused a vertebrae and returned to win the 2019 Masters, his 15th major, before requiring arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in August – his fifth on the same problem joint. Woods won his PGA Tour record-tying 82nd title two months later at the Zozo Championship in Japan. His latest back pain renewed concern that his chase of Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 major might be derailed again, but Woods looked sharp playing the Medalist in Florida, his home course, in a televised charity fundraiser with partner Peyton Manning against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady.

“For the week-in, week-out fan, it’s disappointing we’re not going to see more of Tiger Woods. But I would just say, look, we’ve had our run. Anything else we get from him from an entertainment standpoint is gravy at this point. All of us have gotten to see the greatest golfer of all time and he’s authored two, maybe three of the greatest comebacks the sport has ever seen,” Chamblee said. “So he’s already given us, you know, Secretariat, Brett Favre, Jack Nicklaus all rolled into one. So, what more could we ask for from him?”

Another major perhaps?

Chamblee isn’t so sure that the three majors on the 2020 calendar set up well for Woods. Chamblee is concerned that cooler temperatures in San Francisco at the PGA Championship in August, New York at the U.S. Open in September and Augusta, Georgia, at the Masters in November will make it more challenging on his achy back.

“But again I look at the Tiger I saw at Zozo and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him swing better than that,” Chamblee said. “But from a physical standpoint, it’s like his body is a wet grocery bag filled with jugs of milk. You just never know when it’s going to burst.

“The drama really is watching him sort of walk around a golf course. We’re all looking for any sign of injury, and if he shows up lively and ready to go, then it’s game on.”

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