19th Hole
Is golf the only sport where a Brandel Chamblee would be called a ‘hater’ for his takes?
On the latest episode of Not Another Golf Show, Ben and Gianni discussed Brandel Chamblee’s recent take on LIV pro Joaquin Niemann and Talor Gooch, where the analyst claimed neither are as good as LIV like to make out.
Check out the conversation below (and listen to the full episode here)
Ben: It’s a rhapsody on a theme with respect to his feelings. His feelings about LIV. So I will just, again, when Brandel speaks, we’ll let Brandel speak, so I’ll read his quote here briefly.
“All those players joined that tour saying they wanted to play less but now, to accrue world ranking points, they’re playing more and all around the world where ranking points are available, the way Joaquin Niemann has done.
“And Niemann, yeah, he’s a good player, but let’s not pretend that he’s as good as they pretend he is. He’s played in 22 majors and never even finished in the top-15. Seven missed cuts.”
“And then he goes on to…reference the performance of Talor Gooch:
“…who, by the way, played in three majors, missed two cuts, and finished 34th in the other. So it turns out he’s not as good as they said he was. So there you go.”
“Thoughts?”
Gianni: This is why Brandel is just brilliant. I mean, when I first read this I was like this is catching strays for Niemann. I was thinking ‘wait, Niemann’s not overhyped. He’s not overrated. He’s a great player.’ And then you read he’s played in 22 majors and never even finished in the top 15, seven missed cuts. And it’s like, yeah, he is overhyped. That’s not a good record.
Ben: Yeah. I would have absolutely thought that that was a false statistic if someone presented that as Niemann’s major record. I, to your point, would have believed he’d performed better.
Gianni: Yeah, that’s awful. There’s no mincing words. That is awful.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, and this is what say what you will about an agenda, say what you will about choosing to be polemical when he could be otherwise. And I think that those are, Brandel’s always calculated and you know, he knows what’s going to get picked up and put out there. And I think that’s part of what keeps him in the position he’s in in the game. He is the kind of takesmith of professional golf right now. So whether you like it, whether you don’t, you gotta respect it. But he is not just a windbag. He backs it up with data. He’s done his research, you know, when he has an opinion and he puts it out there. He’s not just criticizing them unduly or something. When he brings out the record, it’s tough to refute the numbers.
Gianni: Well, you can’t. It’s factual and it’s true. He is overhyped because that is his record in the majors. They’re the tournaments that matter most. He’s massively underperformed in them. And as for Talor Gooch, Brandel just pretty much destroyed him. Three majors, missed two cuts and finished 34th in the other.
Ben: Yeah, and again, you know, talk about the spin game. I mean, you know, you bring that up to like, if a LIV representative were asked to comment on this, they would likely point to the records of, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, John Rahm, you know, they would.
They would reference the totality of LIV players. But it is certainly true that I think with Niemann in particular, there was a belief that he belongs in the majors because he’s a legitimate major contender. And as those facts point out, the finish is specifically, at this point in his career, he’s not. So, I mean, fair play.
Gianni: Yeah, LIV can talk about Bryson and Brooks’ records all they like, but it doesn’t change the fact that Niemann’s and Talor Gooch’s are pretty awful.
Ben: Yeah, I get that, you know, the perspective that Brandel’s carrying water for the tour, PGA Tour, and, you know, fine if that, you know, but the facts are the facts with respect to these particular players. And he certainly has knocked them down a peg certainly in terms of my perception of future major win probabilities and probably for a lot of folks who I think again just intuitively would have felt that the finishes were better.
Gianni: Yeah, and this is going to be an unpopular take, but I wish Brandel would speak his mind more often.
Ben: I mean, it’s interesting to do the kind of counterfactual of Brandel Chamblee Golf Channel employee, you know, occasional on air analyst, you know, in the current outlets he has versus Brandel Chamblee hosting the Brandel Chamblee podcast, saying whatever he wants to, having a substack, whatever. If he were to go the independent route, I think folks think, again, well, he’s just there to prop up the PGA Tour. I think he’d be really surprised, and he’d be going a lot further in a lot of directions if he was going the independent route.
Gianni: But it has to be the only major sport where someone as measured as Brandel is can present an opinion with cold hard facts and people lose their mind calling him a hater because he’s criticizing a player.
Listen to the full episode below.
19th Hole
‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish
An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.
However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.
Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.
Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”
Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish
— Jenny Shin (@JennyShin_LPGA) August 3, 2025
Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.
Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.
Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.
Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.
Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.
Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.
“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course. Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”
According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.
“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”
Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.
Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.
The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.
Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”
“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.
However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”
Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.
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