Former PGA Tour pro blasts LIV Golf: "There was just nastiness after nastiness"

Former PGA Tour pro turned Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee has insisted LIV Golf hasn't benefitted the game one bit.

Chamblee has been a vocal critic of the league since it emerged as a rival to the PGA Tour, regularly questioning its impact on professional golf and the reasons behind its creation.

His latest comments come with LIV facing uncertainty over its future after the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) decided to end its multibillion-dollar backing of the league at the end of the 2026 season.

LIV filed for bankruptcy protection in September, with at least $45m owed to players, while the league has been attempting to secure a structure that would allow it to continue beyond the current season.

The circuit announced in August that it had secured an unnamed lead investor for a proposed 2027 competition, dubbed by some as "LIV 2.0", but players remain unclear on exactly what the future league will look like.

LIV Golf's proposed 2027 revival is heavily dependent on securing sufficient player commitment, with the league's restructuring plan tying its future ownership and financing to participation from its leading players.

Chamblee was asked whether he believed LIV had done anything positive for the game on the We Need a Fourth podcast. 

"No," he said.  "Not one.

"Unless you consider, you know, the amount of money that professional golfers have made, that's good for them, but I don't know that that's inherently good for the game of golf."

Chamblee said he had never objected to athletes or entertainers receiving large salaries when those earnings were determined by market forces.

"I've always said that we should never b—- about what athletes get paid or entertainers get paid. The market determines what people get paid.

"It's not some arbitrary group, but in this particular instance, I wouldn't call what the Saudis did as the free market."

LIV was launched with backing from Saudi Arabia's PIF and used that financial strength to challenge the established PGA Tour model, creating a divide that has reshaped professional golf since 2022.

Chamblee argued that the funding behind LIV represented an artificial disruption of the market rather than normal competition.

"Because it was more about obfuscation, it was more about sports-washing," he said. 

"It was more an irrational behaviour in the market that disrupted it that led to such elevated purses."

He also rejected the suggestion that the increased earnings for professional golfers represented a wider benefit to the sport.

"So is that the free market? I mean, we could have a few drinks and talk that over, but, no, there's not a single thing that LIV did that was beneficial to the game," Chamblee said.

"It tilted it irreparably towards greed and caused a lot of discord in the game in the process."

Chamblee also criticized the wider culture surrounding the dispute between LIV and the established golf tours.

"There was just nastiness after nastiness and it brought people into the game that, let's just say were not consistent with the traditions of the game of golf," he said.