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It’s common knowledge that Brandel Chamblee has a big problem with the roles that Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman played in getting LIV Golf off the ground back in 2022.
However, Chamblee also believes that Mickelson and Norman had an even more detrimental effect on the game of golf as a whole than purely their involvement with LIV.
The American and the Australian were complicit in LIV Golf’s attempts to bring down the PGA Tour, in spite of what they may have you believe.
In fairness to Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, the roles they played in LIV Golf‘s inception undoubtedly forced the PGA Tour into raising their own game, both financially and from a business point of view.
Brandel Chamblee doesn’t see it that way, though.
In fact, Chamblee has reveled in LIV Golf’s recent downfall, highlighting how the league failed because golf fans would never accept the greed and the dishonor associated with it.
Now the outspoken golf analyst has taken aim at Mickelson and Norman for creating what he believes is now golf’s most concerning problem.
Brandel Chamblee slams Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman for creating ‘dangerous’ problem
While speaking on the We Need a Fourth Podcast, Chamblee responded when asked what he believes is the biggest problem in golf right now.
“Golf has a lot of problems, but right now, I think the biggest one is that they have to decide what they want to be,“ Chamblee said.
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“Do they want to be what they’ve been? Which to me is the greatest sport in terms of comportment. Or do they want to try to be one of the biggest sports? And in doing so, they’re going to surrender what made golf unlike everything else.
“In other words, the proximity to chaos of fans, they’ve always been, there’s this underlying agreement that they’re going to be polite.
“And to the degree that they want to make this game more popular, they’re going to have to align it with gambling.
“If they align it with gambling and predictive gambling, then ––– there’s always been people, fans have always come to golf to appreciate the game and to see the best golf played. But to whatever degree they align it with gambling, that means that there’s going to be an element of people that come to the game that want to see bad golf because they bet on it.
“That is going to change the very nature of the game of golf, and that is dangerous. I blame that on Phil, and I blame that on Greg Norman.
“I blame them because they’ve irreparably tilted the game towards greed. And that’s golf’s biggest problem in my view.“
Chamblee’s comments are correct, but he is missing one key point here.
Betting in golf is not some new phenomenon – it has been around for more than five decades!
However, the supposed problem of gambling in golf seems to have become a narrative since Jordan Spieth spoke out about it back in June.
Jordan Spieth blames gambling for poor recent fan behavior
When speaking about the abuse that Wyndham Clark received during the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, Spieth took aim at golf betting, suggesting that it could be the reason why fan behavior has deteriorated.
“I think you had some unique circumstances there,” the three-time major champion said.
“I don’t know. I mean, I think the one thing that I’ll point out is I do think that betting in golf is something that’s going to have to be tackled here soon, because I don’t know how much of, say, the Wyndham scenario was the fact that it was enticing to bet the field versus Wyndham on Sunday in a legalized betting state, and you could have had people out there that are essentially, you know, have $100 to $10,000, depending on who it is, on the field versus somebody else.
“In golf it’s tricky because you could actually impact the outcome if you wanted to. It may not last very long, but you could impact a shot if you wanted to. I don’t know of another sport that you could impact as a fan like you can golf.“
Again, why has this all-of-a-sudden become a problem now when gambling has been part of the professional game since the prime years of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer?
Nobody seems able to answer that question.
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