Out-Of-Touch Brandel Chamblee Claims The Players Hasn't Lost 'Prestige' With LIV Golfers Not In The Field
The Players is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, and in many cases, the championship is the same as it always has been. It is still the marquee event on the PGA Tour, carries the largest purse among regular season events, and is a tremendous test on one of the most recognizable and iconic golf courses on the planet.
One thing that has changed - and many would argue it's the most important aspect of all - is the tournament field itself.
For decades, The Players has been seen as the year's fifth major championship, largely because it has the strongest field in the sport. The same can not be said for the 2024 edition.
It's completely fair to say that this year's Players will feature the weakest field in the tournament's history with several world-class players taking their talents to LIV Golf.
It is impossible to say that The Players hasn't lost some of its juice over the last couple of years, unless you're Brandel Chamblee.
(Photo by Chris Condon/PGA TOUR)
Chamblee has been the most vicious critic of LIV Golf since the Saudi-backed circuit emerged on the scene in June 2022. He believes the league is a sports-washing farce that is destroying professional golf as a whole.
He is more than entitled to having that opinion, but his comments about The Players not losing any of its "prestige" despite its all-time bad field is asinine.
"I look at the prestige of this event, the fact that some of the best players in the world are not here. It’s a mild disappointment," Chamblee said on Golf Channel. "I love watching those guys play golf [Smith and Rahm], but they decided to play on another tour. This tour is meant to celebrate the best of the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour."
"The players that are going to LIV have been courted away not with prestige but with greed. Prestige comes to an event, not just because of the money, it comes because of the gauntlet, the course, the tour they play on."
"So while it is at least, in my view, a mild disappointment - yours [addressing colleague Paul McGinley] may be more than a mild disappointment - that they’re not here, I don’t think that it detracts from the prestige of this tournament in any substantive way," he continued.
As both a former PGA Tour winner and an encyclopedia of golf history, Chamblee is among the most profound minds and voices in all of golf. In other words, he's not like the rest of us. Chamblee's opinions very rarely perfectly align with the vast majority of golf fans, because he's nothing like your regular everyday fan.
Unfortunately for Chamblee, it's the regular golf fan that he's not only paid to talk to on Golf Channel, but that same group of people is the exact demographic the PGA Tour is currently battling to hold onto.
Professional golf has quite literally never been more divided. The PGA Tour's marquee event just so happens to have the weakest field in its history, and the stars remaining on Tour have yet to come close to creating fireworks in 2024.
The PGA Tour has lost some of its prestige with many top-tier players bolting for a paycheck from LIV Golf, so if the Tour itself has lost juice, so too has The Players.