Brandel Chamblee is not backing down from his recent critique of Brooks Koepka. Over the weekend, the Golf Channel analyst declared that the three-time major champion is not one of the golfers who can challenge Tiger Woods as the best in the world.
On the latest episode of his podcast, Chamblee doubled down on his position, again stating that only Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy are on the same level as Tiger. This time, though, he elaborated on his opinion.
“I chose [Dustin and Rory] for very specific reasons,” Chamblee said on Hank Haney Golf Radio on SiriusXM on Tuesday. “They’re better drivers of the ball than Brooks, they’re better iron players than Brooks for the most part, and they’re better around the greens.”
“Since 2014, Rory hasn’t finished worst than sixth in scoring average,” Chamblee explained. “Dustin hasn’t finished worst than seventh. Brooks never finished better than ninth. Ninth is great, but it’s not as good as Dustin Johnson or Rory McIlroy. And it’s not as good as Tiger Woods. Would I put him right behind those players? Absolutely. Brooks is an amazing player. He’s just not in the class of [Tiger, DJ and Rory].”
Chamblee’s comments come after Koepka posted a picture on his Twitter account on Saturday of Chamblee with a clown nose, an obvious response to the GOLF.com story of Chamblee not including him in the same ranks as Tiger, DJ, and Rory.
RT @dylan_dethier: please, nobody tell Brooks Koepka https://t.co/bWkeoOlCXo pic.twitter.com/DJ7CYbZO8h
— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) May 4, 2019
On Monday, Koepka opened up about the photo of Chamblee with a clown nose that he tweeted out.
“My coach sent me the tweet, he sent it it me and said, ‘I think you should see it,’ so I saw it and I responded,” Koepka said to GOLF.com. The photoshop, however, was the work of a friend of Koepka’s.
“I’ve got a group text with a bunch of buddies, there’s about 12 of them. I don’t know who sent it, one of ‘em sent it, I thought it was pretty funny,” Koepka said.
But Chamblee couldn’t help but take a jab at Koepka’s photoshopped clown picture.
“I think Brooks is a helluva player,” Chamblee said. “I’ve said so I don’t even know how many times. He certainly wasn’t putting a clown nose on my face when I was lauding him all these years. But it becomes my job to make relative judgment.”
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