Brandel Chamblee took to social media to respond to criticism that he’s “a paid actor” for Golf Channel and NBC and is simply towing the company line.
Those comments were made by golf instructor and podcast host Claude Harmon III in a wide-ranging discussion on LIV and the PGA Tour and media coverage of the ongoing civil war in golf. Harmon is the instructor for Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, who both reportedly accepted more than $100 million to defect to LIV Golf, the upstart golf entity backed by the Public Investment Fund which operates on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia.
You can read Harmon’s full comments, first reported by Golfweek, here.
“The accusation that I am just a proxy for the opinion of my employer is a curious one to me, and while the natural back and forth with colleagues certainly informs my opinion, no one for whom I work with or for has ever tried to influence what I am going to say,” Chamblee wrote in a tweet he posted on Tuesday night. “I’d like to think that they trust whatever opinion I have, whether it agrees with theirs or not, I’ve done the research to back it up. Which is more than I can say for those who suggest that because there is evil everywhere, all evil is relativized and unless all of it can be addressed at the same time and in the same way, it should all be ignored.
“Especially, as in the case of the person who called me a paid actor, if they can somehow profit from the evil. This is where the debate crashes headfirst into the nexus of politics, sports and narcissistic greed. Where those who want to escape it most often cloy at whataboutisms, to stop the discussion with a pejorative accusation because they don’t want their motives to be discovered.”
Chamblee, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of LIV, volleyed back, emphasizing that LIV supporters have missed the larger point of sportswashing.
“To raise the question whether LIV has been good for the PGA Tour is to miss the very human and most important point of the whole issue of sportswashing. It is bad for the people who continue to be oppressed by the man who funds LIV Golf.”
CH3 (Claude Harmon lll) is awesome. His dad is too and should be in the Hall of Fame already. Great read. He holds nothing back, just like his father. https://t.co/aKtY3ixan8
— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) May 24, 2023
Chamblee concluded his 538-word rebuttal/takedown of Harmon III by noting that there’s no window for the Michael Block’s of the world in the closed shop that is LIV and for a fairytale story like golf fans enjoyed last week. (He also noted it is about to become harder for the underdog story to emerge on the PGA Tour.)
“Dignity that was most profound in watching the play of Michael Block, the club professional who stole the show at the PGA Championship with his gratitude and joy and of course with his incredibly sharp game,” Chamblee wrote. “He was a stark reminder of what is missing in LIV Golf and even what will be missing in the PGA Tour’s no-cut, small-field, designated events next year.
“Because golf has always been and hopefully will always be, more about hope than heroes.”
The farrago of whataboutisms that inevitably accompanies any discussion on sportswashing, attempts, in answering a condemnation with an accusation, to impugn the credibility of the accuser and to distract from having to deal with the complexities of the question. Much like…
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) May 24, 2023
