Why Brandel Chamblee’s Bold Majors Choose is flawed

I have the highest regard for Brandel Chamblee, as a golf person and as a person. He is the golfing world’s most endearing TV personality provocateur Brandel is world class. You have to Real lift your front heel off the ground, as Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus did, at the top of your swing to enter the golf pantheon? Recent history says no – but Brandel says yes! And he has the photos and studies to back it up.

If you’re going to take on Brandel Chamblee, you better have your arguments in order.

I would hate to see this guy in a debate, although Paul McGinley, the former European Ryder Cup player and captain, does an excellent job on Golf Channel. Oddly enough, McGinley once argued on live TV that the island-green 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, annual home of the Players Championship in March, is an excellent test of golfing skill, even on freakishly windy days. Chamblee said it was too much. I suspect that if a producer had instructed the two gentlemen to adopt the other’s point of view, they could have argued that side as well.

Now that Chamblee and McGinley are on the air here, I feel like this next bit of commentary is overdue. Chamblee has often been praised, both in this field and elsewhere and rightly so, for having the best (male) hair in golf, with all due respect to Robert Rock (English pro), Neal Shipley (American pro) and Fred Ridley (American golf administrator). But why haven’t the knots in McGinley’s tires been given their due? There is no one who in golf does the Full Windsor better than him. Ronald Reagan would be so happy.

Okay, okay, the introduction is over. Brian Rolapp, the new CEO of the PGA Tour, has figured out that the Tour doesn’t own any of golf’s most valuable and vaunted events: the Masters, the Ryder Cup, the British Open, the US Open and the PGA Championship. It owns the Players Championship, which some people run still refer to as the TPC (Tournament Players Championship), first played in 1974 on the Stadium Course, where some people still call TPC Sawgrass, his birth name. It would serve the interests of the Tour well if the Players’ victory were celebrated in the same way as, for example, a victory at the US Open.

At the WM Phoenix Open this week, Chamblee said, “The Players stands alone for me and stands above the other four major championships as not just a major, it is the best major in my opinion.” He has been walking this path for years. We are all shaped, to an immeasurable degree, by our own experiences. Chamblee played twelve times in the event. He has reported on it every year for Golf Channel since 2004. The Tour’s contractual relationship with Golf Channel is on display for all to see, a relationship that extends into 2030. The network is the Tour’s primary broadcast partner on Thursdays and Fridays. Of course, Brandel wants to put the players in the spotlight until Sunday. It’s not that he’s a company man. For more than twenty years, Chamblee has shown that he thinks for himself. But human nature is human nature.

Chamblee’s latest Players commentary, new and improved for ’26, compliments a new Tour spot for the Players. As my colleague Dylan Dethier recently noted, the new 30-second promotional spot for the Players (March 12-15) concluded with this bit of poetic hype in all caps on your favorite screen: “MARCH IS GOING TO BE MAJOR.” The spot’s soundtrack comes from the 2016 electronica club hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” a mentality no one associates with tournament golf unless your name is Tiger Woods and you’re thinking of the weeks leading up to the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, a course that played an important role in his prodigy youth. That’s part of what made his playoff win over Rocco Mediate such an important moment in golf history. You may not have known that, but it is ingrained in every story about the event. What that tournament meant to Woods magnified its importance to all of us. Do you want a benchmark for that? There is none. Sorry.

The PGA Tour player Michael S. Kim had a response (via For starters, last year’s Players winner (Rory McIlroy) took home $1 million more than last year’s PGA Championship winner (Scottie Scheffler). But do you think Scheffler would trade titles with McIlroy? Absolutely not. He chases history. The same goes for any other player you spent your hard-earned emotion on: Rory; Tiger; Fil; Vijay; Ernie; Seven; Curtis; Watson I; Watson II; Jack; Arnold. Etc., etc.

Now if you want to argue that men’s professional golf has three Grand Slam events, then do so. (The Masters and the two Opens.) Nicklaus, en route to a record 18 majors, won the PGA Championship five times, against fields of 40 or more club pros. Woods won four PGA titles out of his fifteen majors, against much deeper fields and (arguably) more demanding golf courses. If you want to take their PGA Championship titles out of their grand total, be my guest. Nicklaus goes from 18 to 13. Woods goes from 15 to 11. Tom Watson remains at eight – he has never won the PGA Championship. Arnold also remains stale. Seven major titles, including no PGAs.

But do you know why this new accounting, with the PGA off the list and (shall we say) on the same level as the players, would never happen? Because none of the previous winners would let this happen. Because of the PGA’s storied course history and the golfers who have won on it. Because of our connection to those winners (Hagen, Hogan, Nicklaus, Koepka) and those locations (Pebble, Olympic, Bethpage). I’ve said this before, and I believe this idea will gain traction over these decades: If the PGA really wants to differentiate itself from the other three majors, it might consider making Pebble Beach the annual home of the event: a 54-hole qualifier at Pebble, followed by a two-day, 16-player weekend match play event at Cypress Point.

Discuss.

In the meantime, I have one response to Brandel’s statement that the Players is the first of the five majors:

Have you ever, sir, met a kid on a late summer day during a practice session on the putting green, taking aim across a five-foot yard and saying, “This is for the players!”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com