AUSTIN, Texas — Brandel Chamblee of the Golf Channel listens to Tim Rosaforte during the live broadcast of the Dell Match Play Bracket Special at the Paramount Theater prior to the World Golf Championships – Dell Match Play at Austin Country Club on March 21, 2016. | Photo by Chris Condon/PGA TOUR
The long-time golf channel analyst sounded defeated when discussing Tuesday’s news about the PGA Tour’s merger with the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Brandel Chamblee, a renowned Golf Channel journalist and aggressive dissident of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, expressed great concern following Tuesday’s bombshell news.
“I think this is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf,” Chamblee said on Golf Channel. “I do believe the governing bodies, the professional entities have sacrificed their principles for profit.”
Appearing live on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” with Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that the PGA Tour had struck a merger deal with PIF, thus ending golf’s great schism between the tour and LIV Golf.
“I think today is a historic day for the PGA Tour and the game of golf,” Monahan said on the program. “It’s a historic day for the PIF and the DP World Tour… There’s been a lot of tension in our sport over the last couple of years. But what we’re talking about today is coming together to unify the game of golf.”
Monahan’s remarks Tuesday come almost a year after he criticized the beneficiaries of LIV Golf on a CBS broadcast.
“I would ask any player who has left or any player who would consider leaving,” Monahan said. “Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”
Over the past few years, the Saudi government has been accused of sportswashing—or when a government spends money on a sport to overshadow corruption, discrimination, and other injustices.
Yet, the PGA Tour feels differently now as it heads to the RBC Canadian Open this week.
Chamblee detailed his beliefs as to what led to this unforgettable moment in golf.
“I think there are three things likely that would have led to something like this,” Chamblee said Tuesday, “Intractable legal issues going on indefinitely into the future with legal vulnerability on both sides and the only ones who stood to profit from that were the lawyers involved.”
“The entanglement of the various business entities and sponsors that the PGA Tour has that have Saudi money, PIF money in them. It became increasingly difficult for the PGA Tour to disentangle themselves from that scrutiny and that criticism. They were leaving billions of dollars potentially on the table for the growth of the game.”
