Brandel Chamblee issues strong disagreement over narrative about Bryson DeChambeau

Some might argue that it is actually DeChambeau who would benefit most from having a way back to the PGA Tour, since LIV Golf have not grown in the way some people thought it would.

Regarding that, speaking on Straight Facts Homie, Brandel Chamblee said he does not see DeChambeau as someone who drives viewership.

“All LIV did was buy a moment in time. And it’s such a poor product, and they understand golf so rudimentary that they’re not capable of creating their own moments. The only way they can even buy a moment in time is parasitically poach players. That’s it. They don’t have a conduit to creating stars or interest in the game. There are sports everywhere. People only watch sports that matter. That’s it. And there’s nothing about LIV that matters.”

“It’s a horrible product. And when people say, ‘well, they’ve got Bryson’, Bryson’s a heck of a player, but when people want to tell me he moves the needle, I’m like, ‘no he doesn’t, where’s the evidence? Where’s the evidence?’ He’s playing on LIV, he’s winning, he’s doing well. They’re finishing in primetime on the east coast, on a network, and more people watch pickleball. You’re not going to tell me he moves the needle. You set a camera up and watch Tiger Woods chip in his backyard and it will out-rate a LIV event. For that matter, it may out-rate a PGA Tour event.

“But the PGA Tour events’ getting 3.5 million people watching on a random week with random winners. And you’ve got these so-called marketable, so-called interest, so-called draws, and nobody’s watching the product, because it doesn’t matter, because people look at it and they’re like, ‘well, first of all, there’s no merit, there’s no meaning to it’. And they’re finishing on three and winning, or two and winning, or 17 and winning. There’s no flow to it. It’s clear that the people who tried to put it together had no idea about the history of the game of golf. So it just hasn’t resonated. They’ve spent $10-plus billion and they can hardly get anybody to watch the thing.”

How LIV’s Team Championship audience numbers stacked up against the Tour Championship

The PGA Tour’s approach will be interesting to follow if any high-profile LIV players choose to return once their deals are up.

If a player like Rahm or DeChambeau is the first to make the move back, it seems likely that the door will be left open for them. The fact that neither has been replaced at their level adds weight to that possibility.

LIV, on the other hand, has seen slow progress over the past two years. The final round of the Tour Championship drew more than ten times as many viewers as LIV’s Team Championship finale.

Closing that gap is not going to be easy, and without a big-name defection from the PGA Tour, it is hard to see where significant momentum could come from.

Time might help their cause, but for now, Chamblee does not seem worried about what lies ahead for the PGA Tour.