It would be a surprise if a single player received a bigger ovation at Bethpage Black later this month than Bryson DeChambeau as he makes his return to the Ryder Cup stage.
Bryson DeChambeau managed to qualify for Keegan Bradley‘s team despite only earning points through the majors. Of course, the two-time US Open champion plies his trade on LIV Golf.
Many will remember how popular DeChambeau proved to be at Whistling Straits in 2021. With that, it is not hard to imagine what the narrative is likely to be once the Crushers captain has featured at Bethpage Black in a few weeks.
Plenty of golf fans have been waiting for the game to come back together over the last couple of years. And there is a feeling that the PGA Tour would be better off having the likes of Jon Rahm and DeChambeau playing in their events again.
Brandel Chamblee disagrees with claim about Bryson DeChambeau
However, perhaps there is an argument that it is actually DeChambeau who really needs the pathway back to the PGA Tour to be opened up again.
While LIV turned the game upside down when it was formed in 2022, it has not kicked on as some would have expected. And with that, Brandel Chamblee told Straight Facts Homie that he rejects the idea that DeChambeau is someone who has a real impact on ratings.
“All LIV did was buy a moment in time. And it’s such a poor product, and they understand golf so rudimentary that they’re not capable of creating their own moments. The only way they can even buy a moment in time is parasitically poach players. That’s it. They don’t have a conduit to creating stars or interest in the game. There are sports everywhere. People only watch sports that matter. That’s it. And there’s nothing about LIV that matters,” he said.
“It’s a horrible product. And when people say, ‘well, they’ve got Bryson’, Bryson’s a heck of a player, but when people want to tell me he moves the needle, I’m like, ‘no he doesn’t, where’s the evidence? Where’s the evidence?’ He’s playing on LIV, he’s winning, he’s doing well. They’re finishing in primetime on the east coast, on a network, and more people watch pickleball. You’re not going to tell me he moves the needle. You set a camera up and watch Tiger Woods chip in his backyard and it will out-rate a LIV event. For that matter, it may out-rate a PGA Tour event.
“But the PGA Tour events’ getting 3.5 million people watching on a random week with random winners. And you’ve got these so-called marketable, so-called interest, so-called draws, and nobody’s watching the product, because it doesn’t matter, because people look at it and they’re like, ‘well, first of all, there’s no merit, there’s no meaning to it’. And they’re finishing on three and winning, or two and winning, or 17 and winning. There’s no flow to it. It’s clear that the people who tried to put it together had no idea about the history of the game of golf. So it just hasn’t resonated. They’ve spent $10-plus billion and they can hardly get anybody to watch the thing.”
How viewing figures at LIV Golf’s Team Championship event compared with the Tour Championship
It will be fascinating to see how the PGA Tour treats any of the big names on LIV should they reach the end of their contracts and decide that they want to come back.
You would imagine that they will not make it too difficult for someone like Rahm or DeChambeau to come back – particularly if they become the first notable defection in the opposite direction.
But LIV will surely be disappointed with the amount of progress they have made in the last couple of years. The final round of the Tour Championship was watched by more than 10 times the number of people who viewed the last day of LIV’s Team Championship.
And given how tough it is to imagine a huge name on the PGA Tour making the jump, LIV have surely got a real uphill battle trying to close that gap in the coming years.
If they are patient, perhaps progress will be made. But clearly, Chamblee is not concerned about the future of the PGA Tour as things stand.
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