After years of criticizing LIV Golf and shaming players for making the move to the Saudi Arabia-backed, Greg Norman-led circuit, NBC’s Brandel Chamblee has changed his tone. He now says it’s time for the PGA Tour and LIV to come to an agreement and reunite men’s professional golf.
“The time is now, to (Rory McIlroy’s) point about making a deal,” Chamblee said on Golf Central late Thursday, “I wouldn’t have said that a year ago, I don’t think there are a lot of people within the world of golf that would be particularly enamored with the idea of making this deal.
“But it is the better end of the bargain at this point.”
LIV’s Anthony Kim, who made his return to golf earlier this season in Jeddah, took to X/Twitter and called Chamblee’s heel turn a “hypocritically retreat.”
Note: the following tweet contains profanity.
Ramble Chamblee @chambleebrandel ur such a pussy 4 beating on ur chest & basically saying never retreat & hypocritically retreat. It is well known this talentless fool is disliked by most people in the golf world. U still gonna cover golf if @livgolf_league is involved?
— Anthony Kim (@AnthonyKim_Golf) May 10, 2024
As you’d expect, Chamblee came back firing: “I don’t think the Saudis are going to turn away from the game and they will continue to be a poaching threat and dilute the product of the PGA Tour. It’s the sad reality of you and your brethren on the LIV tour willingly dealing with a murderous dictator for profit so that he can hide his atrocities.”
This is about as inaccurate as a lot of Mickelson’s drives and sadly ironical coming two tweets after you asked for advice on raising your daughter that you would refer to someone as a female body part in a juvenile attempt to denigrate them. It’s clear that you were not offered… https://t.co/LVeSgfZenG
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) May 11, 2024
In five LIV Golf starts this year, Kim has yet to finish better than 50th. Chamblee will serve as NBC’s lead analyst later this year at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2.