Brandel Chamblee Q&A, part 2
The outspoken analyst rips pampered Tour pros, and admits: “I choked my guts out”
“Great stuff,” posted a reader named J.F. of part 1 of my interview with Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee. “He leaves you wanting more.” More? So it is written, so it shall be done. Here's part 2 of my conversation with golf's most unsung talking head. Earlier, the former Tour pro, 47, said that Hank Haney has painted a goatee on the Mona Lisa that is Tiger’s swing, echoing Chamblee's eloquent post-PGA Championship critique.
Today, he talks more Tiger, discusses “the worst year of my life,” and calls out today’s pampered Tour pros.
CONNELL BARRETT: You once joked on Golf Channel that playing with Tiger Woods made retiring from the Tour an easy call. What was that first round like?
BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Humbling. It was at the International in 1998. [Tiger] did things that no one else could do. On no. 1, he was on the left side of the fairway. The pin was tucked back-right about 250 yards away, and he had to go over a ridiculously tall pine tree. He takes a 4-iron and skies it over the tree to a foot from the hole. It landed like a damn wet dishrag. It was silly. On no. 6, he made a putt and did the whole air punch. I’d never been that animated on a course in my life! Then he made a hole-in-one on no. 7. After an inordinate amount of screaming from 100,000 people, it was finally quiet for my putt. I’m over my ball, and I hear Tiger whisper to [his then caddie] Fluff, “God, I love this game.” I backed away and laughed. I wanted to say, “No s--- you love it. You make every other shot, and you make a hundred million dollars a year. Try loving it when you hit it 270 instead of 310.” And that’s when he was supposedly in his slump.
CB: You had a solid career but hung it up in 2003. You wrote in Sports Illustrated that you quit because you wanted to be “a real person.”
BC: Golf is all-encompassing. I was always working out, practicing, traveling. Along the way, we lost a child [in 2000, Chamblee’s son Braeden was born two months premature and lived only nine days]. No one can play this game without a burn. I didn’t have enormous talent. I had average talent. But I burned for it. That burn left me around 2000, 2001. There were a million other things I wanted to do. Things people take for granted—skiing, bike-riding, kids’ birthday parties, being home for dinner. I still love the game. It enriches my life every day. But I needed a new endeavor.
CB: Your first full year in the booth was 2003. What was the toughest moment?
BC: [Laughs] The whole year! I started working with ABC, and it was maybe the worst year of my life. I hated it. It wasn’t a great environment. I was moving into Steve Melnyk’s spot, and I don’t know if Steve was happy about it. “Animosity” is a strong word, but it was uncomfortable. And I was terrible. I was stepping on other people’s toes. I didn’t know how to throw it to Judy Rankin. I didn’t know what my role was, if I was stepping on [Curtis Strange’s] toes. It was an uncomfortable, disgusting year. I hated every minute of it. The hardest thing in television is to be yourself, and I was not myself. I was trying to be somebody else. I was speaking with a governor, worrying what others think.
CB: Many athletes can’t make the transition to the booth. Joe Montana was terrible on TV. Lanny Wadkins struggled at CBS before Nick Faldo replaced him.
BC: Live golf is a firestorm of activity. I’d done work on Golf Channel, but that was sound bytes of two or three minutes. In live golf, you speak in six-second bursts. At the [2003] British Open, my second or third event ever, Thomas Bjorn was leading. Now, I love to write. I had written something about Bjorn, who had been in a slump and had run a gamut of gurus—health gurus, swing doctors, psychology experts. I’d written that sometimes golf is about heart, not gurus. On Sunday, as he stepped up to hit a big putt, that’s what I said: This putt is about heart. One of the magazines totally ripped me and said it couldn’t have been more scripted. It was scripted, because I had scripted it. Well, in every criticism, there is some truth. They were right. I should thank them. I was not being authentic. I was speaking formally. That’s not me. When you speak colloquially, you have pauses. It strikes the ear better. It’s one reason Johnny Miller is so appreciated. I learned from that.
CB: David Feherty told me that in TV, you have to ignore what people think.
BC: TV is so subjective. In golf you hang a number on the board, and no one can tell you it wasn’t great. But you can leave the booth thinking you were great and someone says you sucked. I focus on what I can control. I do my research, prepare, and before I go on I tell myself, “Have fun.” If I do those things, it’s a success.
CB: When did you hit your stride in TV?
BC: About two years ago, I walked off the set of a Masters show and realized I’d spoken without a governor, without worrying how it would sound. If you worry about what you say, you won’t give people what they deserve. People deserve to be enlightened.
CB: Do you ever piss off players?
BC: Pretty much every show. [Laughs]. Every show I think, “Just made another enemy.” I remember Johnny Miller once saying I choked [on the course]. My dad was mad. I said, “He was right, Dad. I was choking my guts out!” It didn’t bother me. But just last week, I took issue with [Jeff] Klauk laying up on no. 16 [at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open]. He had 213 to the pin. [Golf Channel’s] Matt Gogel said it was the smart play. I said, “You’ve lost your mind. He’s got 213 in, pin in front, into the wind. It’s a 230 shot—he should blow this to the back of the green and chip it." You have to take chances to win. Klauk was making a mistake. It’s evidence he wasn’t thinking clearly. He was trying not to lose instead of trying to win. I didn’t hear from Klauk, but other players said, “You were too hard on him!” Well, I spoke glowingly of him all day and no one said, “I can’t believe how nice you were.” But when I take issue with a wrong decision, I hear about it. And the guy who won [Martin Laird] decided to go for the green.
CB: You piss people off. What pisses you off?
BC: I’d like to see the [pros] appreciate what they do more and what the media does for them. When I see golfers grimace and act surly... It’s a privilege to play golf for a living, to be compensated lavishly for it, to play the best places in the world. They should be more animated and grateful. That’s why people love Phil Mickelson. He looks like he enjoys what he’s doing it. They should give you guys in the media more to work with. You’re the connection to the fans. I listen to y’alls questions at press conferences. Players should relax, poke fun, like in the ’60s. [Writer] Bob Drum was having lunch with Arnold Palmer [at the 1960 U.S. Open] when Drum said Arnie couldn’t come back to win. So Palmer went out and won it because he had lunch with Drum.
CB: Tiger wouldn’t let me bring him lunch.
BC: Tiger wouldn’t let you within 100 yards of him. The separation between Tour players and everyone else—the media and fans—is too wide. And there’s only one reason: money. If the players weren’t so rich, they’d need the media to cast them in a different light, to get more endorsements. In their minds, they don’t need you. They’re rich enough. You’re not gonna impact their life in any way. But they don’t realize that the media can help them connect with fans. Here’s an example. I haven’t seen Jim Furyk smile in two or three years. Last week we spotlighted him on Golf Channel, and he was fan—f---ing—tastic. Funny and jovial and great. I’m gonna root for him now. He gets it. Before, I didn’t even want to watch him because he looks so grim. These guys should be entertainers, not just guys posting numbers on a board.
CB: Who’s the most talented player you’ve ever seen?
BC: I think of Tiger, Phil, and Ernie. But Tiger has elements that the others don’t. He doesn’t let ego dictate his play, which is rare. Tiger has this incredible focus. He’s not distracted by money or his own success. He’s a greyhound chasing that rabbit of 18 majors. Nothing against Phil. He has the talent. But he’s a sentimental guy who enjoys the cushiness of family and takes a broader, less rigid view. Ernie’s the same way. He likes to hang out on a boat and pop open a six-pack, and that’s great. I’d probably be there with him. Back when Els tore his ACL on a yacht in the Mediterranean, I said, “Yeah, I remember when Hogan did the same thing back in ’52 on his yacht in the Mediterranean.” Hogan was never on a yacht! Those guys back then were putting food on the table. Today’s players make so much money they lose their focus.
CB: Which player has gotten the most out of the least talent?
BC: I don’t think Tom Kite has innate talent. Chris DiMarco almost won two or three majors without big talent. And there’s Corey Pavin.
CB: True story: I was once hitting balls on a range next to Pavin, and I was out-driving him, a U.S. Open champion, and I’m a hacker.
BC: We played together in Tucson once. I was leading the tournament, playing my best. He was all over the map, hitting trees off of tees. Several holes in, I look at the score, and I’m only beating him by two. I’m playing my ass off, and he’s playing like a chop! I said, “If he beats me, I’ll quit!” That says something about his ability to get the ball in the hole.
CB: Which Tour pro do we not know as well as we should?
BC: I enjoy David Duval’s company. He can intelligently talk about any subject. Phil is like that, too. Take away the topics of football and women, and most Tour pros are mute.
CB: Back to TV. We golf fans love ripping announcers, but it’s harder than it looks, right?
BC: TV is the team game to end all team games. If someone in this link of chains makes a mistake, the chain breaks. Let’s say someone on the ground says Justin Leonard is hitting, but it’s actually Zach Johnson, because they’re wearing similar clothes. That information goes from them to the booth to the producer to my earpiece, and out of my mouth comes wrong information, and I look like an idiot. As a fan, you see a guy talking and say, “What an idiot! Why can’t he just f---ing say what he’s trying to say?” Well, he may have gotten screwed by the spotter. Also, you have all these competing voices in your head—a director in one ear, a producer in the other, and maybe [Golf Channel’s] Rich Lerner is asking you a pointed question. The other day, my producer was talking in my ear while Rich was asking me a very pointed question. We’re live. I could not hear either of them. I no more knew what Rich had asked me than a man on the moon. I had to guess, spin it, say it in 10 seconds, and not bleed into the next shot. You can panic. So when you’re at home and you hear someone make a fool of themselves, it’s probably because a s--t-storm has opened up in their ears.
CB: I take back every ball I've hurled at my TV.
BC: Next time you play with your buddies, try this. Anyone [who] utters a cliché has to pay $20. It’s not easy. That's the challenge of TV—to say something 100 different ways in a way that strikes a chord that's not obvious. Otherwise, you’re just killing time, saying nothing new, saying the same thing over and over again.
CB: And then you join Fox News?
BC: [Laughs] I don’t try to be perfect. I try to have fun, enlighten people. I like to say, "Don’t let great be the enemy of good."
Photo: Wireimage.com
