Why Brandel Chamblee’s majors took the wrong way

I have the utmost respect for Brandel Chamblee, both as a golfer and as a human being. He’s TV’s hottest golfer, and as a scumbag Brandel is world class. You should indeed lift your front heel off the ground, like Jones and Hogan and Nicklaus did, at the top of your swing to enter the golf pantheon? Recent history says no – but Brandel says yes! And he has pictures and studies to back it up.

If you’re going to face Brandel Chamblee, you better have your arguments in order.

I wouldn’t want to face this guy in an interview, although Paul McGinley, the former European Ryder Cup player and captain, did a great job about it on the Golf Channel. Ironically, given what’s to come here, McGinley once argued on live TV that the 17th hole on the island green at TPC Sawgrass, March’s annual home of The Players Championship, is the best test of golf skill, even on windy days. Chamblee said it was too much. I think that if the producer ordered these two people to take the other’s point of view, they would argue that side, too.

With Chamblee and McGinley on the air here, I feel the following analysis is overdue. Chamblee is often praised, in this space and elsewhere and rightfully so, for having the best hair (men’s category) in golf, with all due respect to Robert Rock (English pro), Neal Shipley (American pro) and Fred Ridley (American golf director). But why weren’t McGinley’s wooden knots given their due? Here it is there is no in golf who does Full Windsor better than him. Ronald Reagan would be very happy.

OK, OK, the presentation is over. Brian Rolapp, the new CEO of the PGA Tour, discovered that the Tour lacks the most important and prestigious golf events: the Masters, the Ryder Cup, the British Open, the US Open and the PGA Championship. It holds the Players Championship, some people still refer to the TPC (Tournament Players Championship), first played in 1974 at the Stadium Course, some people still call TPC Sawgrass, its birth name. It would serve the Tour’s best interests to have the players’ wins celebrated like a US Open win.

At the WM Phoenix Open this week, Chamblee said, “The players, to me, stand on their own and over the other four majors they’re not just majors, in my estimation, the majors.” He has been going down this road for years. We are all shaped, immeasurably, by our experiences. Chamblee played in this event 12 times. He has covered it on the Golf Channel every year since 2004. The Tour’s contractual relationship with the Golf Channel is there for all to see, extending into 2030. The network is the Tour’s major broadcast partner Thursday-Friday. Of course Brandel wants to celebrate the Players every Sunday. It’s not that he’s a, quote, company man. For more than two decades now, Chamblee has shown that he is thinking about himself. But human nature is human nature.

Chamblee’s most recent Players Commentary, new and improved for ’26, praises the new Players Tour. As my colleague Dylan Dethier noted the other day, the new 30-second promo spot for the Players’ Tour (March 12-15) concludes with this poem about your favorite screen: “THE MARCH WILL BE BIG.” The venue’s theme song is from the 2016 electronic club hit, “I Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” a concept that no one associates with championship golf, unless your name is Tiger Woods and you think of the weeks leading up to the US Open at Torrey Pines, a course that featured heavily in his amazing childhood. That’s part of what made his playoff victory over Rocco Mediate such a defining moment in golf. You probably didn’t know that, but it’s embedded in every story about the event. What that trip meant to Woods raised its importance to all of us. Want a metric for that? There is none. Sorry.

PGA Tour player Michael S. Kim had a response (with an X) to Dylan’s story about the Tour’s efforts to raise the players’ profile: “I would honestly be proud to win The Players over the PGA. (As if I’d choose. I know. Haha.)” (Times posted by the son of an English teacher.) I don’t doubt Kim’s claim to second-guessing sincerity. First, last year’s winner of The Players (Rory McIlroy) took home $1 million more than last year’s winner (Scottie Scheffler) of the PGA Championship. But do you think Scheffler would trade titles with McIlroy? Not at all. He is chasing history. It’s the same with all the other players you’ve used your acquired instincts for: Rory; Tiger; Phil; Vijay; Ernie; Seven; Curtis; Watson I; Watson II; Jack; Arnold. etc., etc.

Now, if you wanted to clarify that men’s golf has three Grand Slam events, have at it. (The Masters and the two Opens.) Nicklaus, on his way to a record 18 majors, won the PGA Championship five times, against fields that had 40 or more club professionals in them. Woods, among his 15 majors, won four PGA titles, against the deepest and (arguably) most demanding golf courses. If you want to cut their PGA Championship titles from their grand totals, be my guest. Nicklaus went from 18 to 13. Woods goes from 15 to 11. Tom Watson remains eight – never won a PGA Championship. Arnold is always patting, too. Seven majors, no PGAs among them.

But you know why this new accounting, with the PGA not in the list and (let’s say) at the same level as the players, will not happen? Because none of the previous winners would have allowed it to happen. Because of the history of the course with PGA stories and the golfers who have succeeded on it. Because of our connections with those winners (Hagen, Hogan, Nicklaus, Koepka) and those places (Pebble, Olympic, Bethpage). I’ve said this before and one of these decades I believe this idea will take hold: If the PGA really wants to differentiate itself from the other three majors, it might consider making Pebble Beach the annual home of the event: a 54-hole qualifier at Pebble, followed by a 16-player two-day weekend play event at Cypress Point.

Discuss.

For now, I have one response to Brandel’s statement, that the Players are the first of the Big Five:

Once, sir, you met a kid on a late summer day on a practice putting green, intent on pointing over the five-footer and saying, “This it’s for the players!”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com