The last thing the PGA Tour wants during the week of its flagship event is to have people talking about a potential rival golf tour. But the Ponte Vedra Beach brass can't be too upset that a damning sound bite directed at the Premier Golf League by one of golf's loudest voices is making the rounds ahead of the 2020 Players Championship.
On Tuesday night, Brandel Chamblee praised Rory McIlroy for his recent comments that he wants "to be on the right side of history" when it comes to the proposed PGL and that "the more I've thought about it, the more I don't like it." But the NBC/Golf Channel analyst also ripped the possible rival league himself, specifically for having financial backing tied to Saudi Arabia.
Here's what Chamblee said during Golf Channel's "Live From The Players":
Rory has the audacity to sort of go it alone. One further note, Rory is no longer using the green-reading book. So he's alone on the range. He's alone on the greens. And he is also alone in his rebuff of I think one of the most important decisions that has come before PGA Tour players since they broke from the PGA of America back in 1968. And that was primarily about autonomy. But Rory's rebuff of the PGL, well, yeah, it was about autonomy, but more than that, far more than that, it was about integrity. Rory had the audacity to question where the money for the PGL was coming from, as if you should care where the money is coming from. If water is flowing downhill from a sewer, and philosophically, the place where this is coming from is the sewer of philosophical ideals—this is where they kill apostates, this is where they put homosexuals in bags and throw them off roofs, this is where they chop up journalists if they don't like what they say. So philosophically, this is the sewer—if water is flowing downhill from a sewer, and because the volume is so great that its contamination is diffused such that you can't really tell that it's contaminated and everybody's telling you to take a drink. Rory stands alone in saying, "Don't drink the water; it's contaminated." What he did there, that is far more rare, and far more important, than his talent is. His talent entertains us. And as rare as his talent is, you see that occasionally. But to see that talent, that kind of talent accompanied with this social awareness and this philosophical precocity, if you want to call it that, that's out of this park.
PGL CEO Andrew Gardiner recently told Golf Digest, "The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is incredibly passionate about golf and its future, and I’m delighted to have them involved."
Of course, it should be noted that Chamblee works for NBC/Golf Channel, which broadcasts PGA Tour events and just signed an extension through 2030. Still, that was quite the strong statement. Here's video of Chamblee's impassioned 90-second monologue:
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