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I never thought I would see the day when a golf announcer (or “analyst” as the networks like to say) who had played the PGA Tour would make Johnny Miller look like a genius. But now we have been blessed with Brandel Chamblee, a 15 year Tour veteran (who won one tournament) who, as lead “analyst” with the Golf Channel, is constantly present on the tube, rising so high in the minds of the powers that be that he joined Miller, Nick Faldo, and Roger Maltbie in a roundtable discussion called “State of the Game”. Of course, the subject dominating the evening’s discussion was Tiger Woods, and recently Chamblee has taken an ever increasingly negative view of everything Tiger is presently doing with his game, including his choice of instructor (Sean Foley) and his swing, which he tries to analyze even though he is an avowed hater of video/technical swing analysis (must be only when someone else is doing it). I present here a few minutes of the dialogue between the moderator Dan Hicks, Miller and Chamblee, as they discuss Tiger’s present state of affairs and the question of whether Tiger should “go back” to Butch Harmon. Miller dodges the Harmon question and offers that Tiger should be using the old “stinger” shot more when he needs to hit a fairway, and generally, at least until he starts going on about the club going more “down the line”, sounds inspired next to Chamblee’s comments, which veer from nonsensical to outrageous. “All he’s done” (since leaving Harmon in 2002) Chamblee opines, “is cost himself a couple of years where he would have been racking up major championships”, completely disregarding (incredibly) Tiger’s SIX majors won in the years from 2005 to 2008. He calls the Butch swing “the perfect swing” with no evidence other than Tiger’s victories to back him up, as though he has no idea that winning does not make a swing perfect. What you will see here in the video is actual visual evidence that Tiger’s swing was not perfect, that it improved under Haney, and that Chamblee’s opinions about Tiger’s swing are sheer nonsense.
Chamblee calls Tiger “a hunting dog with a bad nose”: I’m thinking “that dog don’t hunt”. Chamblee better hope Tiger doesn’t get it back, because if he does he won’t be talking much to ‘ol Brandel.