Tag: Brandel Chamblee

‘Epic’ fall ahead: November Masters could play right into Rory McIlroy’s hands

Having the Tour Championship, U.S. Open and the Masters later in the season could help McIlroy’s chances.

With a new November date for the Masters, and a revamped golf schedule that could see a number of key tournaments played in late summer and through the fall, golf great Jack Nicklaus said earlier this week that he thinks Rory McIlroy could be poised for a huge second half of 2020.

“He seems to play better in the fall,” Nicklaus said on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive. “… He’s won the Tour Championship a couple times. Played in Atlanta, very similar conditions. I think this scheduling will be to Rory’s favor.”

The Golden Bear isn’t the only one who feels the fall conditions could set up nicely for the world’s current No. 1 player.

During a call on Thursday, Golf Channel analysts Justin Leonard, Brandel Chamblee and Rich Lerner all backed up Nicklaus’ comments, suggesting McIlroy could win multiple events.

“I think if we are able to play the schedule as it is laid out right now, I think it does favor a guy like Rory McIlroy, who can get on a run, keep putting himself in contention. From what I hear, I’ve never been to Augusta in November, but my guess is that the golf course could play a little bit softer. It could be a little bit cooler,” Leonard said. “You know, coming off of the summer months, my guess is that the golf course is typically a little wetter that time of year. We know how well Rory McIlroy plays in kind of softer conditions.

“I think it is an advantage for a guy like that, and also, as good of shape as he is in, too, to make a lot of big tournaments there in a short period of time, I think that not only the physical aspect of it, but the mental aspect of it will be tested when you’ve got a number of large events, talking about the PGA, the U.S. Open and The Ryder Cup in September, and then the Masters there in the middle of November. I definitely think it suits Rory McIlroy.”
— Justin Leonard

Lerner, the longtime Golf Channel host, went a step further, saying he thinks McIlroy is poised to make his mark on history with the revised slate. If the new schedule is carried out, the Tour Championship in Atlanta will be played from Sept 4-7, and the U.S. Open will now be played Sept. 17-20. The 84th Masters, which was supposed to be played this week at Augusta National Golf Club, has been re-scheduled for Nov. 9-15 in Augusta, Georgia.

“I think McIlroy could become the first bona fide legend of the post-Tiger — we’re still in kind of the Tiger era, but the post-Tiger generation, let’s just put it that way,” Lerner said. “And I think he could also lay claim to the title —  maybe the best European player ever.”

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Augusta National will certainly be impacted by the schedule change, as the course will not play the same. But Brandel Chamblee also noted that cooler temperatures will impact the field’s veterans.

“I was looking at some weather charts from November for Augusta, and in 2014, the average temperature for the entire month was 49.2 degrees, and on November 19 of that year, it was 15 degrees. It can be quite cool there, obviously, that time of year,” said Chamblee, another Golf Channel analyst. “My friends who have played there in November tell me the golf course plays quite long. There is, on one hand, I think the sort of thought that the postponement of the majors in general would help, you know, the likes of Tiger (Woods) and (Brooks) Koepka and (Louis) Oosthuizen and Jason Day, who are dealing with some injuries.

“So it’s good news on that front if these events actually come forward because there were some hobbled superstars and there’s a chance they could show up in better physical condition, which is really good news. But cold temperatures are not particularly good on old backs. So yeah … I can’t imagine any scenario that doesn’t favor Rory.”

Rory McIlroy on the 18th green during the third round of the 2019 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club. McIlroy won that tournament, following a win in the 2016 event. Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports

Chamblee added that McIlroy has plenty to gear up for — if the schedule remains intact, he’ll have a chance to become the first back-to-back FedEx Cup champion. He also was the PGA Tour Player of the Year winner in 2019, the first time he won the award since award 2014.

“Rory seems to be playing — which is hard to believe, as close to playing the best golf of his life,” Chamblee said. “So yeah, I think it is setting up to be another epic year for Rory, and I would have thought and I think most people would agree, he’s easily a favorite to win his next major championship at some point this year.”

So can anything slow McIlroy down at this point? Notah Begay III said the one thing that could cause a hiccup for the four-time major champ is the current delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Any time you’re forced to take time off playing the kind of golf he was playing, it’s like, I finally got this thing where I want it, and now I can’t run with it,” Begay said. “I think that is a bit of a hindrance as far as, OK, how long is it going to take him to get back to running at the same sort of pace he was running at?”

Brandel Chamblee breaks silence, clarifies comments from Golfweek Q&A

The Golf Channel commentator addresses his controversial comments he made to Golfweek.com.

Golfweek’s three-part Q&A with Brandel Chamblee caused quite a stir in the golf world, especially among teaching professionals who took offense with some of Chamblee’s comments— including saying how social media and YouTube have “bitch-slapped instruction into reality.”

Plenty of industry voices have responded to Chamblee, who issued an apology via social media for his poor choice of words, but otherwise, he’s remained quiet as others piled on.

Chamblee broke his silence today while talking with host Jaime Diaz on his eponymous podcast, The Brandel Chamblee Podcast. Since Chamblee’s answers were presented on Golfweek.com’s Q&A in nearly their entirety, here is his full answer:

Chamblee: There was a phrase I used that I wish I could have tackled myself before I used it, and I certainly had never used it before, and it turned what I think would have been a mild controversy into something that was sort of flammable and it was used in the headline.

That phrase notwithstanding, I would say, other than that, there was a willful misreading of that Q&A. My point was that the PGA of America — and I’ve made this point numerous times, I’ve written about it, talked about it, gone on air and done numerous shows — that the PGA of America and the teachers of the PGA of America are the soul of the game. When you think about Harvey Penick or Eddie Merrins or Randy Smith or Sandy LeBauve or Peggy Kirk Bell or Bob Toski, on and on and on, they are the greatest link between the beginner and the captured golfer. I’ve said that innumerable times.

My point was that teaching has been improved at the, I say, the most notable level on the PGA Tour level by the internet. I don’t think that is any great insight. It seems obvious to me that some bad ideas in teaching, which I said were not maliciously intended but no less pernicious in their popularity. And those ideas were a centered head, an early set of the wrists and a restricted turn.

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee said a word he used in his recent Q&A with Golfweek turned what “would have been a mild controversy into something that was sort of flammable.”

I think those ideas died a pretty quick death because of the peer review that is now available through the various social media outlets and the internet and YouTube. And beyond that I said that, and I believe this to be the case, the top 50 or top 100 teachers, whatever you want to say, when it is judged subjectively when it could clearly be judged objectively it will be an inherently flawed system.

Now, there were some people that took offense to that and those people are probably rightfully taking offense to that because they occupy a position amongst those in the top 50 or top 100 and they quite like their subjectively viewed position.

But who knows? As I’ve said, I’d like to know who the greatest teacher in the country is. I’d really like to know that. It may be a 75-year-old woman teaching off mats in Nebraska; it might be a 22-year-old, a young, just newly into the PGA of America person in Wyoming who is having the greatest success, but we won’t know until we start using objective criteria to judge the best teachers.

I was quite happy to find out that the PGA of America is going to do just that this summer. I talked to Suzy Whaley, the president of the PGA (of America), and she told me that’s exactly what’s going happen. They are going to for the first time ever use some objective measurement to sort of find who their best teachers are. I think golf will be better off for that and so will teaching. And that’s pretty much all I have to say about that Q&A.

Editor’s note: You can read Part I of the Q&A here Part II here and Part III here.

Brandel Chamblee tells a story of a young Anthony Kim — with plenty of swagger

As if we needed any further confirmation, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee says Anthony Kim always had swagger.

Everyone misses Anthony Kim. It’s hard to believe that a full decade has passed since his last victory at the 2010 Shell Houston Open. One year earlier, the then 23-year-old put on a show at the Masters, carding a tournament-record 11 birdies in shooting an unforgettable round of 65 at Augusta National Golf Club — in just his second competitive round there.

Golf Channel’s Jaime Diaz and Brandel Chamblee were reminiscing about that wild round that included a double bogey and two other bogeys on their podcast when Chamblee told a story about the first time he ran across Kim.

Anthony Kim was a three-time PGA Tour winner who had three starts at the Masters, making two cuts.

“He was 11 years old. He was on the back of the range hitting golf balls at PGA West and I was on the back of the range practicing myself,” Chamblee explained. “I walked over and stood behind this kid — I didn’t really know who he was.

“I just heard the sound of his shots and saw how fast he was swinging the club — and after, I don’t know, the 10th in a row that never left the flag, he turned around and looked at me and said, ‘Who’s going to beat me?’ Well, I was like, ‘Certainly nobody who is 11 was going to beat you.’ I don’t know if I could have beat him at the time and I was on the PGA Tour at the time.”

Kim, who was known for his blinged-out belts and late-night partying, won three times on the PGA Tour between 2008 and 2010 and was a Ryder Cup hero in 2008 before injuries to his hand and surgery to his Achilles tendon in his left leg stalled his career. Kim last played in the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship and withdrew. A.K., we hardly knew ya, but even at 11 you always had swagger.

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Brandel Chamblee Q&A Part III: Advice for Bryson; talking classes of 2011 & ’19, and the Tour’s next breakout star is …

Brandel Chamblee spoke to Golfweek for an exclusive Q&A on all parts of the professional golf landscape, from teachers to top players.

It seems in every infomercial there’s eventually a moment when the host says, “But wait … there’s more!”

We’ve reached that point in the Q&A with Brandel Chamblee, which took place at the Waste Management Phoenix Open before Sungjae Im or Viktor Hovland won. If you missed Part I or Part II, click the links to catch up. Trust us, Part III with Chamblee is better than The Godfather III.

GW: If Bryson DeChambeau came to you for advice, what would you tell him?

BC: (Laughing) What would I tell him? There’s a lot of things I like about Bryson’s game. I guess I would tell him to go back and look at the records of John Schlee, Mac O’Grady and Bobby Clampett (note: they won a combined four PGA Tour titles, or one fewer than DeChambeau on his own). I would say you go look at those records. And you just tell me if that led to the kind of career that you want. Because that’s where you’re headed.

All those players were highly technical, very conscientious players, very sharp intellectually, but is that the kind of career you want? And then it’s like, “What kind of career do you want?” There is room for curiosity in the game, but the game is more art than it is science; it’s more abstract than it is linear. And you’re completely linear and that’s great if you want to be an engineer, but this game, the beautiful thing about golf is engineers can make money out here, you know, but artists make more money.

Seve made a hell of a lot more money than Mac O’Grady, and the thing is that those engineers are all sure they’re right. Because math adds up and they go down and they look at all these numbers and it absolutely has to work. You look at the way DeChambeau looks at a miss, he looks at it with such an incredulous hatred last week when his ball goes left, he’s like, “How does that go left?” It makes no sense to him because two and two is four. But not on a golf course it’s not. Two and two, to quote “The Big Short,” two and two equals fish. Can’t remember the character’s name that said that but two and two equals fish. Golf is not like that. So I would tell him to go look at those players and then look at their careers. It’s like, “Do you want a career like that? Because that’s where you’re headed.”

GW: The class of 2011 had its “quarter-life crisis” last year. Jordan Spieth was winless, Justin Thomas was injured for a stretch, but he’s bounced back. Daniel Berger was out, too, and looks to be on solid footing again. Patrick Rodgers still hasn’t won yet and struggled to keep his card. And Ollie Schniederjans lost his while Michael Kim is lost in the wilderness and hardly has made a cut since his lone win at the 2018 John Deere Classic. Xander Schauffele was the unheralded guy of the group and was the best of the bunch last season. What do you make of them?

BC: It’s beautiful that Xander is taught by his father, Justin Thomas is taught by his father. Those two have gone on. So, the others did what? They went and started talking to every teacher there was, or their teachers started changing the way they taught them. Again, you cannot overstate the fact that both Justin Thomas and Xander were taught by their fathers who were there, not for their own benefit as teachers, but purely for their son and they enjoy watching their sons invent and create and get better. Experience will make you better.

Schniederjans has this incredibly sharp angle of attack, lowest launch angle on the PGA Tour. When you start seeing people with a launch angle of six, they’re in trouble. That’s way too much angle. They’re not going to have great proximity to the hole and it’s going to creep into their putting.

Not quite sure what happened to Daniel Berger. Growing a superstar is fraught with issues. You get, you know, lured away by equipment contracts, you get lured away by teachers who have only their best interests in mind. Yeah, they’re trying to make you a better player but they’re also trying to use you as their guinea pig for their ideas. You make a little bit of money, maybe you get a little complacent. There are all kinds of potholes out there. Injuries, there’s all kinds of things. You go to the gym and hurt yourself, things like you look at Camilo Villegas and Anthony Kim, they were going to be superstars but they go into the gym, they hurt themselves, existential hurdles, nocturnal issues. There are all kinds of things that get in the way of growing a superstar.

GW: Which of the Class of 2019 – Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff – would you want to caddie for, to have as your meal ticket, for the next decade or two?

BC: That’s a tough one. You would be happy if you got any of those three. It may just be that 20 years from now, all three of them have comparable careers the way Phil (Mickelson) and Ernie (Els) did, who came out at the same time and the question would have been asked, “Who is going to have the better career, Phil or Ernie?”

To the degree that Phil beat Ernie is only because Phil is smart enough not to let anybody mess with his golf swing, and he had multiple teachers and none of them changed his golf swing one iota. If Ernie had stuck with the golf swing that he had in 1992, he would have probably annihilated Phil. You look at Ernie Els’ golf swing in 2000-2001, he goes up to the top and casts. Els was nowhere near the driver of the golf ball that he should have been because he cast the club. He threw away all his power on his angle in the transition. The reason Ernie Els couldn’t beat Tiger Woods was not because Tiger Woods was better at golf, it was because Ernie Els was being taught to cast the club. He couldn’t drive the golf ball like Tiger Woods. And he was winning majors when Phil couldn’t win majors. It took a bizarre set of circumstances for Phil to start winning majors, like a solid core golf ball turning everybody into inaccurate drivers that put them in the rough and all of a sudden Phil could beat people in the rough.

But to answer your question, I guess probably Viktor Hovland. If you’re a caddie, you would never have to stray very far from the fairway, you’re not going to get mud on your shoes very often. He’s got the smallest miss of just about anybody out there and he’s just a delightful young man. He hits as many or more solid shots than anybody in the game. He hits it right on the meat of the club. Tony Finau and Hovland, those are the two who could at any moment just go off.

GW: What do you think is holding Finau back?

BC: Nothing. I mean, is he a great putter? No. But statistics lie a lot and win totals lie a lot. He is more on the cusp of breaking out than any other player in golf right now. He may only win one time this year, but he may win four or three, he may do what David Duval did. He is, as we sit here and speak, he’s second in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, only Rory is better than him. He’s seventh in Strokes Gained: Total, in spite of the fact that he’s a below-average putter. He’s an extraordinary golfer. Any minute, any minute he could go off.

If you look who in the top, say, 200 in the world, who is poised for a breakthrough, there’s Sungjae Im, Ben An, Joaquin Niemann and Matt Wolff, Collin Morikawa. There’s Doc Redman, but there’s nobody more poised to break out than Tony Finau. There’s Victor Hovland, good gracious, it’s Finau and Hovland who are the two that are most poised in my opinion. But Collin Morikawa is right there. Those are the players who are most poised to break out.

Brandel Chamblee Q&A Part II: Fixing Jordan ‘in 2 seconds’; questioning Rickie’s coaching change, praising Tiger?

Brandel Chamblee on why he’s not sold on Rickie Fowler’s coaching change, what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth and who’s coaching Tiger Woods.

It started with a simple question from my wife. “Ask Brandel if he thinks Matthew Wolff’s swing is sustainable,” she suggested, and with that Brandel Chamblee of Golf Channel and I went down a rabbit hole, touching on an array of topics.

You can read Part I here. In part II, Chamblee digs in to why he’s not sold on Rickie Fowler’s coaching change, what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth, and who’s really coaching Tiger Woods these days.

It’s Chamblee breaking it all down in his inimitable fashion and much, much more.

GW: Do you still think the most dangerous place on the PGA Tour is the range from Monday to Wednesday?

BC: Yeah that’s where more careers end on the PGA Tour than are helped. You start to watch players that change teachers, like they’re going along nicely with a teacher.

GW: Rickie Fowler has recently changed coaches to John Tillery and he says, “I just needed a new set of eyes.” What do you make of that?

BC: You know, I think that is so dangerous. It is so dangerous. Rickie has been an extraordinary player and having an amazing career, just on the cusp of superstardom. His coach (Butch Harmon) retires and is no longer going to Tour events, which means now you have to get on a plane and fly to Las Vegas to see him. So get on a plane and fly to Vegas or send him video. Rickie had roughly seven, eight years with a coach who helped him immediately become a better player. There wasn’t an incubation period necessary and he immediately got better.

Rickie Fowler at the 2020 Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Photo by Rob Schumacher/ USA TODAY Sports

GW: In general, do you think it is better for a player to ride it out with the same coach if they aren’t showing improvement or perhaps regressing?

BC: Let me start by saying that John Tillery is a very good coach, but I think if you look at how a player plays his best golf and like Jordan Spieth, what’s going on with Jordan Spieth? He’s had the same coach but that coach is teaching him differently. You look at Jordan Spieth’s movements and I’ll do this today on the show, but you look at Jordan Spieth’s movements, and now this is Jordan Spieth yesterday on the 11th fairway (pulls up video on his phone). I want you to watch two things. Watch his left knee right when he takes the club away. You see where it goes, it’s already out to his toes. Whenever your knee goes out that quickly you lose trunk balance and your body will move towards the target and you’ll have to make compensations. The net result of that is, watch this club in transition, OK, watch it right there and so you see the butt end of the club, it goes back, it doesn’t go out towards the ball, that club should go out towards the ball in transition. So as a result his shaft steepens right there and doesn’t shallow, OK.

Jordan Spieth at the 2019 Northern Trust at Liberty National Golf Course. Photo by Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports

Now, just to compare that, just to give you some idea what it used to do, this is an iron. This is 2015 (pulls up another video on his phone). First of all, watch his left knee. It will not kick out early, OK, it is still. Now his left knee is over his shoe strings, OK, it’s not to his toes. It does kick out, but I’m talking about to there (indicating his left knee) on the other swing is already out over his toes. The club shaft is parallel to the ground. So he’s got better trunk balance. Now then watch when he gets up to the top. Watch where the club goes. You see that. See when it first moves down the club, moves out towards the ball and the shaft lays down? See how the shaft lays down behind it? See that? His club when he transitions doesn’t lay down behind, it steepens, this is shallowing it, OK. You don’t see that. You look at it and you say why is he playing crummy? He’s almost last in every statistical category. You can look at in ball striking when he was almost first in every statistical category.

There’s consequences to these movements. You cannot change the engine pattern. (The video from 2015) is how Jordan plays his best golf. 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. That would take two seconds to fix. Two seconds. But he’s clearly been told that or somebody’s watching him who is not aware.

Jordan Spieth should be a better player than he was in 2015 by experience alone. What did he need to do to that golf swing in 2015? He almost won every major he played in. So this necessity to always be changing is just, every game is in a constant state of repair or attack of ideas.

GW: All it takes is a degree of change and before you know it, it’s enough that you’re searching for your swing, right?

BC: He didn’t need to change anything. All he needed to do was go to the range and work on shots. Did he have every shot in the bag? I doubt it.

GW: Do you think Jordan chased distance?

BC:  Yeah, it sounds like he or (Cameron) McCormick, they chased distance. Why would he need to chase distance? Why? The reason you chase distance is to get it out there far enough that you can get past the area where you hit shots with the greatest dispersion. That’s why you want to hit it farther because if you get past that 150-to-200 range or 175-to-225 range, where the greatest dispersion is, and all of a sudden you get into the 125-to-150 range, where there is hardly any dispersion. That’s why you chase distance. But if you are from 175 (yards) the best in the world, you don’t need to chase distance; you are already doing from 175 what guys hope to do when they get to 150. You have negated the distance disadvantage that you’re at. He was already there. He didn’t have to do anything. Plus, he chipped better and putted better than anybody else.

GW: Do you think Tiger’s really is his own coach these days?

BC: I think he takes the counsel of Notah Begay and I think John Cook, who talks to Jamie Mulligan, and Notah talks to Chris Como. Notah talks to everybody. But I think what Tiger did was, it’s as it simple as he picked up the book that he wrote in 2001 and he used it as a blueprint and he went back there.

Tiger Woods laughs with Notah Begay on the range during the 2017 Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Photo by Ryan Young/PGA Tour

GC: You told me previously that Notah told Tiger that his own book is all he needs, right?

BC: That’s right. Notah’s a good friend and a really bright guy and Tiger, of course he doesn’t have the same body that he had in 2000, but who would know more about the golf swing than Tiger Woods? And who was more capable of putting all the pieces together to swing like Tiger Woods in 2000 than Tiger?

I used his swing from 2003 on Golf Channel because he won the Farmers (Insurance Open) in 2003 and compared it to 2020 (at Farmers), and they’re identical other than the fact that he swung 10 miles an hour faster in 2003 because he could extend his legs and turn faster. But they’re the same exact golf swing.

Tiger has learned a lot from everybody. He had great sort of fundamental understanding of the history of the game with Butch and shot making, and I think Hank Haney helped him learn about strategy and no 3-putts and no doubles. Sean Foley took him down the rabbit hole of movement patterns and cause and effect and I think Chris Como helped put all those pieces together so he’s had this master education and he doesn’t need an instructor.

I mean who would be better equipped to help Tiger than Tiger?

PGA of America officials respond to Chamblee: ‘It’s unfair to paint all instructors with the same ugly brush’

PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh and President Suzy Whaley responded to a Golfweek interview with Brandel Chamblee.

Editor’s note: In a letter to the editor, PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh and President Suzy Whaley responded to a Golfweek Q&A with Brandel Chamblee:

 

In good conscience we cannot allow Brandel Chamblee’s comment in a Golfweek Q&A on March 25 that golf instruction has been “bitch-slapped by reality” be allowed to stand without comment. It is offensive, sexist and disgraceful. Using such crude and hateful language is abhorrent in any context and in this case a direct contradiction to the countless programs and initiatives those in the industry provide to ensure everyone feels welcome in golf.

Chamblee is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but it is unfair to paint all instructors with the same ugly brush. Making the case that crowdsourcing golf instruction on social media and through YouTube videos is inherently more valuable than being coached by a PGA Professional is both farcical and disrespectful. We can’t speak for all instructors, but at the PGA of America we are proud of our members who choose to coach. They help millions enjoy the game more, play it at a higher level, and most importantly, play the game for as long as possible with the best experience possible.

The path required to earn PGA membership is extremely rigorous with an academic curriculum and testing based on scientific research and practical, hands-on experience over a period of four or more years. There are also demanding continuing education requirements, which include, among other subjects, best practices for using technology in coaching. But what truly sets PGA Professionals apart, in addition to this training and expertise, is the way they use their craft to help improve people’s lives by welcoming them into the game, by helping them to improve and to enjoy the game no matter where they happen to be on their golf journey.

The dedicated men and women of the PGA will continue to ensure the vitality of the game. Our coaches are crucial to the game’s success and longevity, and we are incredibly proud of the work they do to benefit all those who join us on the course.

Sincerely,

Seth Waugh
PGA of America CEO

Suzy Whaley
PGA of America President

Brandel Chamblee says golf instruction has been ‘bitch-slapped into reality’ and more in exclusive Q&A

In Golfweek’s exclusive Q&A with Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee he offers strong opinions on the state of golf instruction past and present

It started with a simple question from my wife.

“Ask Brandel if he thinks Matthew Wolff’s swing is sustainable,” she suggested, and with that Brandel Chamblee of Golf Channel and I went down a rabbit hole, touching on an array of topics including how social media and YouTube have “bitch-slapped instruction into reality,” why Trackman doesn’t necessarily make golf swings better and how all those top-50 instructor lists are a joke.

In part II (coming soon), Chamblee digs in to why he’s not on board with Rickie Fowler’s coaching change, what’s wrong with Jordan Spieth, and who’s really coaching Tiger Woods these days. Sorry, you’ll have to wait a news cycle or two for all of that but we promise it will be worth the wait. It’s Chamblee breaking it all down in his inimitable fashion.

The transcript of our conversation ran nearly 10,000 words – but we spared you from having to suffer through some of our asides and trimmed his infamous verbosity – and only left the juicy stuff.

With no further ado, Brandel Chamblee everybody.

Golfweek: Since I know my wife is going to ask me later on if I asked you her question, I’ll just start there as I’m interested in your take. Is Matthew Wolff’s swing sustainable?

Brandel Chamblee: Absolutely. That’s like saying, Is Miller Barber’s golf swing sustainable? The funkiest golf swings endure the longest and are the most consistent. You can’t find a funkier golf swing than Ray Floyd. Ray Floyd was winning golf tournaments at 49 years of age, he was on the Ryder Cup at 50. Same is true of Miller Barber, same is true of Lee Trevino, same is true of Jim Furyk. Find me a more consistent player over a longer period of time than Jim Furyk and you’re talking about the Mount Everest of golfers. So, it’s not only sustainable, it’s a golf swing that is going to lead to other players who are adopting the moves in his golf swing.

Matthew Wolff at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images

GW: For the longest time, we were headed in a direction towards everybody trying to do the same thing, get the same numbers, but now we’re starting to move the opposite way. How do you explain that? It would seem that with the ease in checking your numbers these days, that we should be moving towards everybody being more like Adam Scott, right?

BC: No, I think that people realize the movement patterns and the teaching philosophy of 30, 40 years ago has run into YouTube videos and social media, which acts as purity for teaching and I believe about five, six, seven years ago the whole instruction world, the pendulum began to shift away from restriction to more freedom to move, to turn. Turn those hips, straighten that right leg, lift that left heel. When you do that a whole host of possibilities happen. Your hands are going to get high and when they get high you’re going to end up with guys like Matt Wolff and Justin Thomas. It used to be everybody tried to swing perfectly on plane, left arm on shoulder plane, club and club face and left arm in same alignment at the top. These are all aesthetic ideals which work to restrict the athlete.

So, now then you’re getting all this freedom and athletic movement, so you’re going to see swings like Viktor Hovland. He basically learned his golf swing on YouTube. Yeah, he’s had a few teachers and so forth, but the errors in teaching have been kicked to the curb by social media and by YouTube and by people who had access to that stuff. Look, the whole reason I wrote my book, I would say 95% of the reason I wrote the book I wrote was to swing the pendulum of teaching away from irrational ideas to the commonalities of the greatest players of all times.

GW: Miller Barber found something that worked – hitting balls and playing over an extended period of time – but in this day and age if he had a Trackman in front of him wouldn’t he have moved away from a swing that was perfectly good?

JP Harrington wedge fitting
A TrackMan 4 launch monitor.

BC: He probably would have been a lesser player. I mean it’s absolutely a fact that Trackman helps you dial in your golf club equipment. It’s an absolute fact, no question about it. It’s good for that. It’s not obvious that it’s good for the game. It’s not obvious that it makes you a better player. Does it help you dial in your equipment? Your yardages? Yes, it’s more convenient than laying golf bags out there 50 and 75 yards and hitting those targets.

But it’s not obvious that Trackman makes you a better player in terms of your golf swing. Miller Barber had he had instruction perhaps earlier somebody would have said to him, ‘Look, you got to set your wrist earlier on the back swing.’ Why? ‘I don’t know, because I think it looks better.’ But now today Miller Barber would go, ‘Well, hold on a second, why would you want me to set my wrist earlier own the back swing? Because right here on YouTube I can see that Ben Hogan didn’t do that and I see that Jack Nicklaus didn’t do that and Tiger Woods didn’t do that and I can see that Greg Norman didn’t do that. So why do you want me to set my wrists earlier on the back swing?’ Because nobody did that.

The teachers are being exposed for their idiocy, but I stood on the range with a prominent teacher who had acolytes all around him who then went out and those acolytes talk with acolytes and then they completely spread this flawed philosophy through all of teaching and all teachers stuck to that ideal and all teachers taught flawed philosophies and these philosophies finally got bitch-slapped by reality. YouTube, there it is, you’re wrong, they’re right.

Photo by USA TODAY Sports

Before that who had video of all these people? You had to really, really be a student of the game. And then even if you were you still had the periodicals that would post stories and you’d go to the airport and go to the grocery store and there they are touting that this is how you swing a golf club and you say, ‘Well, I guess I’m an idiot because here are these guys on front pages of magazines telling me that I need to set my wrists and swing flat and keep the club in front of me and stay balanced and have a compacted golf swing for more consistency.’ These are all packaged lies. They didn’t have malicious intent, but they just weren’t vetted out. Now those ideas get vetted out by social media. It’s peer review. Put those out there, the whole world goes to their computers and says, Wait a minute.

GW: It does seem like if you go by the rankings of instructors, all the best teachers in the country are working with PGA Tour pros. It seems farfetched that it could be that simple, right?

BC: Oh, the rankings are ridiculous. They couldn’t be any more inaccurate. When I look at those lists and the people that put those lists together, they’re my friends, and again there’s no malicious intent but they put them together based upon those teachers that are the most marketable, that are writing the most columns.

We can clearly, in an objective way, determine who the best teachers are and we’re just not doing it because we’re lazy, but the PGA of America has the ability to objectively tell you who the best teachers are based upon any number of metric — club head speed, launch angles, or how about just six months before a player comes to you what their handicap was and after that for the next year what their handicap is and, of course, there’s all kinds of factors that would come into play there. There would be squabbling and there would be people who mess around with those numbers, but we would be on our way there. There has to be a better way than what we’re doing right now which is just the opinion, by the way, of all these teachers.

All I know is that when I get that list I know one thing: these for sure are not the top-50 teachers in the world. For sure. That’s 50 out of the 27,000 that I know for sure are not the top-50 teachers in the world. And by the way I go down all the lists and I get a (pad) out and I write down what they teach, what their ideas are and then I go look up all their (pro) players and then I see are they better or are they worse? I do it for all 50 of them. It takes me days to do it, but I do it just for giggles. I go online, I look at their ideas and some of them crack me up.

Coming soon to Golfweek.com, Part II of this discussion with Brandel Chamblee.

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Brandel Chamblee delivers the biggest takedown of Premier Golf League – yet

NBC/Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee delivers an epic takedown of Premier League Golf and any player who chooses to support it.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee is never one to hold back with his opinions. But he delivered a doozy, even for him, while discussing Rory McIlroy and his recent comments about the Premier Golf League, a potential rival league to the PGA Tour with financial backing tied to Saudi Arabia.

“I think he just pointed out the flaws in what it would mean to take the money, and the flaws would be that these Tour players are called independent contractors. If you’re lucky enough to ascend to a place on the PGA Tour, I can’t think of another – I can’t think of anything else in life where nobody gets to tell you what to do,” Chamblee said. “The Tour can’t tell you what to do. You can fire your caddie if you don’t like the pants he’s wearing, and they do it. Ed Fiori famously fired his caddie. ‘Why did you do it?’ (He said), ‘I don’t know, I just got tired of looking at him.’ Managers kowtow to you, the Tour kowtows to you, caddies kowtow to you. Nobody tells a Tour player what to do.”

“Well, maybe their wife,” interjected fellow Golf Channel analyst and former Players champion Justin Leonard.

“Fair point, but at least nobody in the business world, outside of their wife, gets to tell them what to do,” Chamblee said. “You find me another sport where they have that autonomy, and now all of a sudden they are no longer autonomous, they are beholden, and not only are they beholden, they’re beholden to people that in my estimation are not unlike a drug cartel.

“You’re talking about the most egregious acts against humanity. These people put homosexuals in bags and throw them off buildings for sport. They chop up journalists. So every morning you’d have to look in the mirror and go, ‘Do I really like where this money is coming from? Am I not somewhat complicit? Am I not being a ventriloquist? Am I not sort of being a part of the euphemizing of these atrocities?’ And you’ve got one guy to stand out and say these are the problems here. Yeah, there’s a lot of money, but there’s a lot of existential baggage that comes with that.

“And he thought it through, and he said – it was a beautiful line: ‘I wasn’t really happy with where the money is coming from.’ And that one line, that one line is his brilliance. ‘I wasn’t really happy with where the money is coming from,’ because think about that philosophical question. Somebody comes to you and says, ‘I’m going to pay you 10 times the money you’re making to do the exact same job, but with it comes a little baggage,’ and then we all sort of hedge a little bit here and a little bit here, and the next thing you know you don’t care if they’re throwing homosexuals off of buildings for sport, chopping people up and killing them because they changed their religion. I applaud the man. What he does on the golf course is one thing, but what he did in the media center, I mean, that’s rarer than the athletic skill that he has.”

Andy Gardiner, the Premier Golf League’s CEO, has previously stated that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which invests on behalf of the Saudi government, is one of the primary financial engines of the startup.

It should be noted that Chamblee’s employer, Golf Channel and NBC, just signed a nine-year deal to continue as one of the chief broadcast partners of the PGA Tour.

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Brandel Chamblee’s solutions to fix golf’s problems? Grow the rough, play 12 holes

After the release of the USGA and R&A’s Distance Insights report, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee had a few solutions to fix golf’s problem.

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On Tuesday morning the United States Golf Association and the R&A released their highly anticipated report which determined distance is playing an excessive role in the game and causing the sport to go in an unsustainable direction.

The 102-page Distance Insights report features data and information from 56 different projects, but doesn’t offer a solution to the distance problem. Instead it paves the way for change, after a period of research and evaluation.

Brandel Chamblee has a few ideas on possible solutions, and he shared them during Golf Channel’s two-hour special edition of Golf Central Tuesday evening.

“As I read (the report), I found myself agreeing with some of the issues from a sustainability standpoint as the game continues to grow,” said Chamblee. “But I found myself differing in a lot of aspects of the report. Namely, I feel like the game is out of whack at the professional level in one way, and I think we do agree about this, the inability to play the game with great accuracy, what I would define as being outside the top 100 in driving accuracy and to be rewarded is out of whack.”

Chamblee, as he’s known to do, gave a strong opinion and brought some stats to help support his argument. Six players who finished 2019 in the top 10 in scoring average were outside the top 100 in driving accuracy. Patrick Cantlay was 160th in driving accuracy, and second in scoring average.

Chamblee, winner of the 1998 Greater Vancouver Open, compared that to the first year the Tour started to keep that kind of data in 1980. For players in the top 10 in scoring average, the worst driver of the golf ball finished 80th in driving accuracy. The leader in scoring average? Lee Trevino, who finished 12th in driving accuracy.  Jim Herman was 12th in driving accuracy last year on Tour and finished 167th in scoring average.

“I can find those correlations diminishing and I think impoverishing the game,” said Chamblee, “but I think the solution is more organically found than the more difficult solutions that are proposed or hinted at.”

His first solution? Grow the rough.

“The golf ball can easily be constricted by raising the fairway heights, growing the rough and firming up the greens,” he explained.

His second solution, this time to solve the sustainability problem, is much more fun: Play 12 holes.

“On the sustainability issue, real quick if I can, I’ll use a rowing analogy. You row forward by looking back. This game was 12 holes when it began, at the highest level it was 12 holes. For a dozen years it was 12 holes. The record was 149 and he won by 12, Old Tom Morris in 1870. Why is it 18? You want a smaller footprint, you want a faster round, why don’t we go back to the beginning of the game and play 12 hole golf courses?

Why not play 12? Historical records, thousands of courses are built for 9 or 18 holes already, just to name a couple. Chamblee’s retort?

“There was a historical record when they went from 12 holes to 18,” said Chamblee. “I’m talking about sustainability issues. I’m talking about times issues. Why do I worry about those records? We’ll have new records for 48 holes or 60 holes or whatever you want it to be. But if you really want a smaller footprint, and you want to play faster, the easiest solution is 12 holes, not 18.”

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Golf Channel’s ‘Live From’ crew pays touching tribute to CBS-bound Frank Nobilo

Golf Channel’s ‘Golf Central Live From’ crew Rich Lerner and Brandel Chamblee paid a touching tribute to CBS-bound Frank Nobilo.

Golf Channel’s broadcast of the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne showed not only an incredible week of golf, but some emotional moments as Tiger Woods and the United States fought back for an eighth consecutive victory.

The emotions continued on Sunday during a segment on ‘Golf Central Live From,’ where host Rich Lerner and analyst Brandel Chamblee paid touching tribute to Frank Nobilo on his last segment before joining CBS.

Lerner opened by giving the viewer some background on Nobilo’s career, noting how he was “a Sunday fixture at major championships” in the 1990’s before injuries took over the prime of his career.

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“The first event I ever covered for Golf Channel was the 1997 Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, which Frank won,” said Lerner, who went on to note how Nobilo has become “one of the most respected voices in the sport.”

“Frank, 16 years I’ve been sitting next to you, I feel like I’ve argued more with you than my ex-wife, and I think I’m consoled by the fact that I don’t have to send you checks,” joked Chamblee, whose arguments and debates with Nobilo have produced compelling television over the years.

Chamblee added he’ll miss not only Nobilo’s boxing analogies, puns and long, unfunny jokes, but also his analysis and “unbelievable versatility” and ability to take the players’ perspective.

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After taking a few seconds to collect his thoughts, Nobilo said it was a “touch of irony” that his last ‘Live From’ segment came at Royal Melbourne, where he was a member of the International squad’s lone Presidents Cup victory over the United States in 1998.

“From the Presidents Cup back in ’98, it was a band of brothers, I enjoyed that form a golfing point of view,” said Nobilo. “Brandel, Rich, I’ve had the utmost pleasure to sit alongside, argue, but more importantly enjoy the game just as much as you.”

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