Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee Talks PGA Championship & LIV Golf

The PGA Championship had Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee in Newtown Square. Kirk Morrison filling in for Rich got the full conversation, which ran through everything from the deceptive Aronimink course to Scottie Scheffler's place in history to the long road back for LIV golfers.

The opening verdict was the headline.

"The golf course won in round number one," Chamblee said.

The first three days, the field thought it was getting a pushover. Wide fairways. No trees. Light rough.

"I didn't hear any bitching the first three days, and that is so unusual for any major championship," Chamblee said. "It was almost as if these guys just thought it was going to be a walk in the park."

There was precedent for the assumption. In 2018, the last time players were here, there were five scores of 62. The reality this week has been very different.

"Lowest score yesterday was 67, and it's playing brutally tough this morning," Chamblee said. "Cold conditions. The rough is a bigger factor."

The shock names were everywhere. Rory McIlroy. Bryson DeChambeau shooting 76. Even Scottie Scheffler's solid round did not crack the lead.

The stat Chamblee landed on for the leaderboard congestion was an all-timer.

"Since they've been playing majors since 1860, there had never been 33 players after round number one within two shots of the lead," Chamblee said. "And that's what we had yesterday."

His framing was a marathon.

"Everybody starting at different places on the track, and you really don't know who's leading till the final round," Chamblee said.

The course's lethality is quiet but constant.

"It's not as ominous as Oakmont, or it doesn't look as ominous as an Oakmont," Chamblee said. "The course sort of just pickpockets you all day long. It's like paper cuts all day long."

His feel for what kind of player will win this is gone.

"I can't say that I've ever sat at a golf tournament, and I've been here now it's the fifth day, where I have less of a feel for what type of player it's going to divine out," Chamblee said.

Morrison asked how you actually win a course like this. Chamblee went to historical data.

"The three where we do have data, great data, the players that have won were first in strokes-gained putting, first in strokes-gained putting, and third in strokes-gained putting," Chamblee said. "So it's pretty clear previously that this has been sort of just a putting contest."

The current leaderboard, in his read, looks exactly the same.

"The data that most looks like the leaderboard is who's putting well," Chamblee said.

His image for Aronimink was the close of the round-one analysis.

"You're at a party and a guy looks like an accountant and he turns out to be a Navy SEAL," Chamblee said. "That's what Aronimink is."

Morrison asked who could break through this week. Chamblee mentioned Alex Smalley and Hideki Matsuyama. He spent more time on the macro picture of why true underdogs are basically extinct.

"You go back now 14 years on the PGA Tour, and you're almost, so we're talking 57 majors in a row where there's absolutely no surprises in major championships," Chamblee said. "The average world rank of the major championship winner in the last 14 years has been better than 15th in the world. So the game is almost without underdog stories anymore."

The reason, in Chamblee's view, is that a small group of stars now dominates.

"It's the Scottie Schefflers. It's the Bryson DeChambeaus. It's the Brooks Koepkas. And it's the Rory McIlroys," Chamblee said. "Scottie and Rory have won four of the last five major championships."

He flagged Scheffler as the one to watch even with a slightly off year.

"Right now, even though Scotty looks a little out of sorts, he's only, well, he's two back as we speak," Chamblee said. "I have a feeling at some point over the next couple of days it will occur to the players not particularly experienced at the top of this leaderboard what they're doing."

Morrison asked Chamblee to characterize Scheffler's season. The answer was a paradox.

"He's played the worst golf that he's played in the last five years, he's played this year, and he's still by far the best player on tour," Chamblee said. "That tells you the distance between where he was the last two or three years and where everybody else was."

Chamblee made the historical case in full.

"We're looking at in Scottie Scheffler potentially one of the greatest players of all time, certainly a player I didn't expect to see again post-Tiger Woods," Chamblee said. "He has separated himself in not maybe not exactly the same way Tiger Woods had, maybe not quite to the extent that Tiger Woods has, but he has separated himself in a way I never thought I would see again. He is demonstrably the best player in the world."

The proof point Chamblee chose was a cherry-picking exercise.

"You could cherry-pick Rory McIlroy's best every year over almost 20 years playing the PGA Tour, and you're not going to find a year where he's as good as Scottie Scheffler has been," Chamblee said. "So what we're looking at is one of the greatest players of all time. Still in the prime of his career."

Morrison pivoted to a fun social media segment that had been running, where silhouettes of pro swings were posted and viewers had to identify them.

Chamblee called it a good bit and then dunked on the entire premise.

"You're not going to stump golfers," Chamblee said. "You're not going to stump professional golfers. You throw up golf swings, you can black it out, you can hide it, they know the second, they know almost from the setup. They know before the swing."

The identifying tells, in his read, are the smallest mannerisms.

"I could just look at Scottie Scheffler's hands, I could see nothing else, I'd know it was Scottie Scheffler," Chamblee said. "I could see his feet, I'd know it was Scottie Scheffler. And it's that way with every single player that you've ever seen swing a golf club."

The conversation turned to the LIV question. Chamblee did not soften his take.

"I wouldn't say it's the fault of golf or the fault of the PGA Tour that the best players in the world are not playing together," Chamblee said. "It's the players who chose to take the profit over the principle."

The departures, in his read, have not held up.

"With the exception of Bryson, and you could even argue now Bryson is struggling, pretty much everybody who's gone to LIV, their game has fallen off demonstrably," Chamblee said.

The future of the league itself, he believes, is uncertain.

"There's a lot of debate about whether or not even LIV will hang on next year," Chamblee said. "I doubt it's going to be any private equity, any investors anywhere in the world that want to ante up with all of those expenditures in line."

The Jon Rahm contract was the proof point. Chamblee estimated the remaining guarantee at $175 to $200 million.

"Nobody wants to pay that," Chamblee said. "Nobody wants to pay what Bryson DeChambeau seems to think that he's worth."

The road back to the PGA Tour will not be a soft landing.

"They're going to have to come back and pay huge fines to come back," Chamblee said. "They're going to have to come back and play some time penalties, spend some time in the penalty box, so to speak. Very few of them are even exempt. And the ones that are, when they come back, they're probably going to have to play lesser events before they get onto the signature events."

The summary, in Chamblee's own words, was the headline.

"It's going to be a while, and the road back's going to be punitive, and it's going to be bumpy," Chamblee said.

For the final number, Chamblee called the Sunday score in the seven-to-eight-under range. Weather is supposed to warm up. He stuck with his Wednesday pick.

"I picked Scottie Scheffler to win Wednesday night," Chamblee said. "Really went out on a limb, Kirk. I picked the number one player in the world to win. But I'm sticking with him."

Morrison floated Min Woo Lee as his sentimental choice. Chamblee did not argue against the swagger.