Brandel Chamblee is definitely much in the PGA Tour camp regarding their rivalry with LIV Golf.
Chamblee is one of the most outspoken critics of LIV Golf amongst the media, and he often uses his platform to criticise pretty much everything about the Saudi-backed golf league.
Numerous high-profile players left the PGA Tour to join LIV back in the summer of 2022, including Bryson DeChambeau and six-time major champion Phil Mickelson.
The shifting golfing landscape has only been a negative for golf fans, with the best players in the world now only competing against each other four times per year.
We really do need the two tours to form some kind of alliance. However, that was simply never going to happen with Jay Monahan at the helm.
Chamblee has suggested that he’s been told a merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf will never happen.
However, could that all change now with Brian Rolapp taking up the position of the new CEO of the PGA Tour?
Brandel Chamblee loved one thing PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said about LIV Golf
The former PGA Tour player is never one to shy away from an argument when it comes to the negative impact he believes LIV have had on the world of professional golf.
Chamblee recently criticised Phil Mickelson for his ‘idiotic’ comments about the advantages that LIV have over the PGA Tour.
In fairness it seems like we’re further away now from a merger happening than ever before.
But could there really be a future whereby the two tours work together to give the fans what we want, with Rolapp leading the way?
Chamblee said he loved something he heard the new PGA Tour CEO say about LIV, when speaking on The Favourite Chamblee Podcast.
He said: “At such a pivotal time for the PGA Tour’s business dealings, I think it’s great that the SSG and the PGA Tour board have found such a potentially phenomenal leader. One of the things he said that I just loved was, ‘I don’t know if I know enough about the dynamics of LIV and PGA TOUR, and when I learn enough I’ll speak on that, just give me some time, I’m going to wait and see and get up to speed on this and then I’ll have some comments on this’.”
The important question Lucas Glover asked Brian Rolapp about PGA Tour issue
Lucas Glover is one of the most outspoken players on the PGA Tour when it comes to protecting the best interests of the members.
He has openly taken aim at certain problems on Tour, including slow play and controversial driver-testing protocols.
So when Glover met new PGA Tour CEO Rolapp, he asked him one question that he felt needed answering.
He said: “The one question I asked when I met him in person. So we’re here at the Travelers Championship, and we’ve only got 72 guys here. I guess by design the 72 top players at the very moment on the PGA Tour, however you want to look at that. But then next week, you’ve got a full field event at the Rocket Mortgage in Detroit, so my brain immediately went to those guys who aren’t lucky to be here, are they going to get this opportunity (to meet and speak with Rolapp). And I asked him, ‘Any chance you’re going to Detroit next week?’, and he goes, ‘I am’, and that thrilled me.
“We’re covering all of our bases here, if you’re going to meet the top guys, you’ve got to meet the rest of the membership too. I’ve been beating that drum for a long time that the Tour is the whole membership, not just the top guys. That made my day to hear that he was going to go to basically have the same meeting next week and meet the whole membership, or as many as possible.“
The general consensus is that Rolapp will bring some much-needed fresh thinking to the table.
And one of the most important items on his agenda will be to make inroads into a merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, or at least to get both sides sharing in open dialogue.
And the fact that he didn’t give lip service regarding that pleased Chamblee and golf fans alike.
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