Brandel Chamblee Praises Scheffler, Spieth And Zalatoris For Rejecting LIV Golf

With the second LIV Golf season having concluded with the Team Championship at Trump National Doral, long-time critic of the circuit Brandel Chamblee has praised fellow Texans for not joining it, before criticising the perceived reasons for its existence.

The Golf Channel analyst posted his thoughts in a lengthy message on X (formerly Twitter), which he began by singling out players from his home state who have avoided the temptation to sign for LIV Golf. 

The message began: “As a Texan, I’m well aware of my bias, but bias withstanding, not enough can be said about the Texans who turned down the crazy millions to join LIV.

"Grateful to PGA Tour stars Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth who helped ensure the history of the PGA Tour by turning down tens of millions, but especially to Will Zalatoris, who as an injured but rising potential superstar told the Saudis (MBS) to stuff their 130 million dollar offer because he wanted to be, not only on the right side of history, to create an inspiring legacy.

“In addition to Zalatoris, the Coody brothers, Pierceson and Parker, turned down multimillion dollar and potentially life changing offers because they believed legacy has more currency than hypocrisy.”

Back in June last year, Pierceson Coody revealed he had turned down "crazy" money to join LIV Golf, while in March, Fred Couples claimed Zalatoris had rejected a $130m offer to join the circuit.

Chamblee then addressed what he sees as the real reasons LIV Golf exists – sportswashing Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and diversifying its economy, which he argued is being held back because of its views of women.

He continued: “The Saudis (MBS) want to use golf to launder their reputation but perhaps as much or more, to use golf as a crutch to diversify their economy that is almost solely based upon petroleum but largely hindered by their subjugation and some would argue their enslavement of women, which truncates their intellectual and entrepreneurial development.

“They want to use golf as a vehicle for economic expansion, to obviate the necessity of modernizing their archaic and medieval views about women, which obviously hinders their economic expansion.”

He then hinted at what’s at stake as the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund behind LIV work on a framework agreement that could see them joining forces from next year.

He wrote: “If we allow golf to be bought out by the Saudis (MBS), we will tacitly be supporting the subjugation of women. Golf is facing an existential threat that has far more implications than even the game of golf.”

Chamblee’s message is the latest in a series of criticisms he’s made of the circuit. In May, he responded to Brooks Koepka's coach Claude Harmon's claim he was a "paid actor" by saying Harmon was happy to "profit from evil."

Then, after news broke of the PGA Tour’s merger with the PIF, he described it as “one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf,” while before last week’s Team Championship, he hit back at LIV golfer Phil Mickelson’s claim that more high-profile PGA Tour players will join the circuit.