Brandel Chamblee Q&A: Tiger's fatal swing flaw
Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee on what makes him cry, Tiger's Achilles' heel, and life as "a huge slut" (it's not what you think)
I've hurled many household items at my TV, hoping that a well-flung coaster might somehow penetrate the pixels and silence Stuart Scott’s catchphrase-spewing gob, or knock mawkish Jimmy Roberts off his stack of phone books.
Then there's Brandel Chamblee. Some golfers are sneaky long. Golf Channel's Chamblee is sneaky good. The former Tour player, 47, is the game's most underrated broadcaster. He's articulate, opinionated, astute, and his laconic sentences are allergic to clichés. With the Tour season limping to the barn—Do you have Viking Classic fever, like me?—the Tour winner phoned Flyers World Headquarters to talk Tiger (and why Woods thought Chamblee hated him), heartbreak (one word: Watson), and the upside of being "a huge slut."
Connell Barrett: The Tour season is almost over. What was the biggest surprise of 2009?
Brandel Chamblee: The monster stories that died. The biggest story in the history of the game was Tom Watson, at 59, adding to his resume of major championships at the British Open. But it didn't happen. I thought it would. I was ready to go on the Golf Channel set when it looked like he would win, and I was so moved that I didn't think I could do the show. I had to literally have a talk with myself and say, "OK, keep it together. Get your act together." I was too emotional. When his 8-iron went over the green [on the 72nd hole], I looked at where he was, did the math, and I felt he couldn't get up and down. You just knew that was probably it. That he wouldn't win a playoff after that. But what a week it was.
CB: Sports Illustrated's Gary Van Sickle called 2009 the "Year of the Buzzkill." And I'm still going through my Watson-related 12-step program.
BC: The whole week was building to this crescendo. I thought it was too good to be true. The oldest Champions Tour winner is something like 63, and for Watson to win a British at almost 60? Ridiculous. And then there was Phil Mickelson at the Masters. Everybody talks about Kenny Perry almost winning, but Mickelson almost pulled an Arnold Palmer-type comeback at Augusta. He stood on the 12th tee just one or two back, and the way he was playing I felt he was gonna make some birdies. And how about both Mickelson and David Duval almost winning at the U.S. Open? Either would have been stupid stories. Flat-out unbelievable. I can’t recall a year where so many monster stories were gutted.
CB: You really got choked up over Watson?
BC: I get moved easily. I'm emotional. I'm moved by people who remove boundaries. I'm moved by the written word. I needed those extra minutes [before going on-air] to get myself together because I didn't want to come on the show and be a babbling idiot.
CB: Nah. Being a babbling idiot is Feherty's job.
BC: [laughs] He's fantastic at being a babbling idiot. The best.
CB: What writing moves you to tears?
BC: One of my favorite books is Genius, by Harold Bloom. He introduces us to 100 of the greatest authors ever—Walt Whitman, Milton, Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare. I read it to my kids, much to their anger. I like the poem Walt Whitman wrote about Abraham Lincoln dying. I enjoy original thought.
CB: After your fellow bookworm Lucas Glover won the U.S. Open, my Golf Magazine colleague Cameron Morfit said, “The only books most Tour pros read are yardage books.”
BC: I love reading. I carry five books with me—one in my car, one or two in my backpack for the plane, another two for evening reading. I'm not a monogamous reader. Borders and Barnes & Noble are like crackhouses to me. I walk by and say, "I'm not going, I'm not going..." Next thing I know, I walk out with $200 in books. I'm a huge book slut!
CB: Thanks for writing my headline: "Chamblee: 'I'm a huge slut!' " Let's talk Tiger. This year he had six wins and more than $10 million in earnings but no majors. Was it a great year? An average year?
BC: If we judge him by his own enormous standards, it was a good year, not great. Lately, he's been drawing our attention to his overall winning percentage, which is higher than it used to be, but only in tournaments that mean less to him—non-majors—than in the majors, which define his career, according to him. I don't believe him when he says it's a great year. I just don't. I believe he's disappointed.
CB: You've been critical of Tiger's driving, even though he ranks among the leaders in total driving on Tour.
BC: People point to his driving as having improved, but it hasn't, if you compare him to 2000. He hits his tee shots better, but his driver is not better than it was in 2000. Not by a long shot. The stats are misleading, because Tiger's hitting more 3-woods and irons off the tee, which helps his accuracy numbers. With his driver, he hits less than half his fairways. I've checked it on ShotLink.
CB: Sounds like you pay close attention to Tiger's swing.
BC: I have this argument with [Tiger's swing coach] Hank [Haney] all the time. Hank and I will go back forth with text messages, some angry, some decent. I have huge respect for Hank. I took lessons from him out of college. But you can say that we agree to disagree in terms of swing philosophy. In my opinion, Tiger's still struggling with his golf swing, and it hurts him in major championships. He doesn't hit the ball as far or as straight in majors, and subsequently he has to rely on his putter more. He's not [winning majors by] five shots anymore. He's not intimidating players the way he used to because he's not 40, 50 yards ahead of them anymore. He's not hitting short irons [into greens] while they hit middle-irons. He's playing from where they play. He's still better. He's still smarter. But now he's one of them. He's not blowing them away.
CB: Could he blow people away again, if he wanted? Does he have power in reserve?
BC: Tiger can't swing as hard as he did in 2000 because if he does, he'll miss the shot either left or right, because he doesn't have [the club] in as good of a position. That's a fact. Not an opinion. A fact.
CB: What, specifically, is holding Tiger back with the swing?
BC: I think he takes his arms too far away from his body on the backswing. This is physics, plain and simple. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If your arms move away from your body too much on the way back, your arms will naturally shallow out—whether you’re hitting a baseball, hitting a forehand in tennis, or hitting a golf ball. If you do that with your golf club and try to put the club in the same place coming down that you did going back, the club tends to get "stuck" on the way down, and you hit a push. With the exception of Lee Trevino, no great ball-striker in history has ever moved their arms away from their body going back. They stay more connected. Now, if you have this tremendous torque in your lower body to begin the downswing, like Tiger does, you can get stuck. He had his driver in a much better place back in 2000 and 2001, and he hit it great.
CB: So his swing was better in 2000?
BC: His driver was more reliable. He hit the ball as hard as he wanted and didn’t worry about hitting it left or right. In 2000, he was second in driving distance behind John Daly—and you don't really count Daly, who was hitting it as hard as he could. In 2000, Tiger averaged 298 [yards], and the next guy was Davis Love, at 288. He had a 10-yard advantage, which is a huge gap. He was bombing it by everybody and hitting over 70 percent of his fairways. Now when he swings hard, he misses the fairway. He hits less than half of his fairways with driver, so he'll hit a cut-off 3-wood or nail an iron, which he does well. He doesn't get stuck [with shorter clubs]. Tiger has a weight on his back right now—his driver. He can’t drive the ball the way he did when he beat everybody by 15 shots [at the U.S. Open] and 8 shots [at the British Open]. With the exception of the BMW Championship, he doesn’t really blow the fields away. He doesn’t scare people.
CB: The intimidation factor has vanished, hasn't it—along with his driver's accuracy?
BC: It used to be, guys could not play with him. Literally. They went to sports psychologists to learn how to deal with him. When I hear Tiger say that he's a better player now than in 2000, OK, yeah, he wins more regular Tour events. But is he a better striker of the ball? He's not. He doesn't hit it as far or as straight. And subsequently, he doesn't have the same intimidation factor. Last year, I looked something up. Look at everyone playing [professional] golf in 2000 who is still playing now. I'm talking about on the PGA Tour, European Tour, Nationwide Tour, the LPGA Tour, all over. There is only one player who has lost yardage from then to now. Only one. Tiger Woods. Look it up. Everyone else is longer, and he's lost yardage because he was bombing it then, hitting it right on the button, swinging as hard as he could.
CB: At a PGA Championship press conference this year, I asked Tiger who would win if he played his year 2000 self in a match. He said that 2009 Tiger would win because he's learned how to get the ball in the hole.
BC: I remember that! That was a great question. I played his answer [on Golf Channel]. But here’s the real question to ask him: "If you played yourself in a major championship, who wins: 2009 or 2000 Tiger?" How could he honestly say that he's better today in majors than in 2000? Does he think he'll go out and beat the guy who won at Pebble by 15 shots? [Today] he comes in after a round and says he's winning more, that his swing is better—but he's not winning more in majors. From the '99 PGA to the '02 U.S. Open, he won 7 of 11 majors. He doesn't win that often now.
CB: Fascinating. So, in his effort to win more tournaments, he's losing more majors. It's Tiger’s Law of Unintended Consequences.
BC: Put him on a course where you pay a higher price for missing fairways and a higher price for missing a green, and is he better than he was? No. Not in majors. Of course, I’m judging him on the ridiculous standard of 2000. It's funny. Hank will say to me, "Tiger thinks you hate him." Whoa, whoa! Are you crazy? You guys don't listen to the 30 minutes I go on about how great he is. He might have the greatest golf mind ever. And his short game? The only other superstar bomber who had a razor-sharp short game was Tom Watson, from '77 to '83, and he lost it and never won another major. Tiger Woods grew up bombing it, but his short game is as good as it gets. And I love his swing—his tempo, rotation, speed. But I just think if he moved his hands in his backswing, say, eight inches closer to his body—I think he would have already probably broken Jack’s record and might be out of the game by now. So in one crazy respect, I’m glad his swing isn't the same as 2000, because I want to watch him for another 10-15 years.
Photo: Getty Images
