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PEBBLE BEACH, CA – JULY 05: Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee is on set during a practice round for the 78th U.S. Women s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links on July 05, 2023 in Pebble Beach, California. Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire GOLF: JUL 05 78th U.S. Women s Open EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon230705062
Imago
PEBBLE BEACH, CA – JULY 05: Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee is on set during a practice round for the 78th U.S. Women s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links on July 05, 2023 in Pebble Beach, California. Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire GOLF: JUL 05 78th U.S. Women s Open EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon230705062
New things are in store for the PGA Tour. The major change is offering a fully exempt status to only 100 players (as opposed to 125) in the FedEx Cup Standings. An overhaul that saw bubble golfers scrambling hard in the season-ending fall events. But the main question is: are these transitions headed in the right direction? Brandel Chamblee doesn’t think so.
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Promoting his new episode of the Favorite Chamblee podcast, the golf analyst went on to detail everything he believes is a PGA Tour misstep.
“I would argue that with the PGA Tour reducing the number of exempt players and apparently headed toward a schedule that emphasizes scarcity over ubiquity, it risks looking more like LIV than differentiating itself from it,” he wrote.
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LIV Golf has 52 golfers who compete in each event. For Chamblee, the central point is rather simple. Every previous Tour commissioner has expanded the playing field because the PGA Tour, by charter, is a players’ organization and welcomes all.
Professional golf is likely the only sport where the gap between the best golfer and the one sitting in 150th position could be razor-thin. Take Chris Gotterup‘s win over Rory McIlroy in the Genesis Scottish Open. The American was placed at 158th in the OWGR, while McIlroy was the second-best golfer in the world.
“[It] is a rounding error, and in every other sport it is a chasm,” Chamblee reminded his followers of this unique nature of golf.
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So when the PGA Tour decides to limit its field, it risks this competitive edge, believes Brandel Chamblee. “At the very time the PGA Tour should be expanding, it is constricting, becoming less about accessibility and more [about] exclusivity, which undermines its goals of being all about meritocracy,” Chamblee opined.
The new PGA Tour vision sees a reduction in golfers, as well as tournaments on the calendar, which will force the top ones into the same events more often. It will give each tournament more weight. Ultimately, the broadcast value will increase. Brian Rolapp’s roping in ex-NFL employees is another step in that direction. But Chamblee is not convinced.
This meritocracy has allowed up-and-coming stars to get a pathway into the PGA Tour. A golfer on the Korn Ferry Tour could play an event. Or one who had not qualified previously could do so with the Monday qualifiers. But, as per Brandel Chamblee, a “players’ organization” shrinking its own player pipeline is a philosophical contradiction.
The reason Chamblee wrote at length is likely because he was teasing the new podcast episode. Gary McCord, long-time PGA Tour golfer and author, will be a guest on his podcast show. How does he fit into this narrative?
How Gary McCord built the PGA Tour’s meritocracy
Gary McCord is the very architect of the golfer-centered system that the PGA Tour is now preparing to roll back. Back in the ’80s, McCord conducted an uprising that aimed to fix a system he believed was “fundamentally broken.” During the 1981 Doral Open, he saw that several PGA Tour winners, like Miller Barber and Frank Beard, were competing for the Monday qualifier spots.
This opens a rabbit hole for him to jump. With a degree in economics, McCord soon found out that 76 percent of PGA Tour competitors could not sustain themselves financially from their tournament earnings. Playing golf for them was merely a job.
He posted flyers on the practice range, invited Tour golfers for a meeting, and pitched his goal. Around 105 attended. They agreed on a proposal that called for expanding the exempt status from 60 to at least 140. Eventually, this proposal was presented in front of the then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman.
Beman agreed, and the entire initiative was handed over to McCord. The result became evident in 1983 as golf saw an expanded field of 125. The golfers advocated for 170 at first, but a compromise was made by the board, and the current number was set. The same number that will see an end in a span of a month.
Written by
Edited by
Riya Singhal