‘Not playing against best’: Brandel Chamblee blames LIV for Rahm, Bryson stumble 

Jon Rahm played the PGA Championship’s final three holes at five-over par over the weekend, while Bryson DeChambeau played them at four over — and Brandel Chamblee says he knows the reason. 

The longtime Golf Channel analyst said it’s due to where Rahm and DeChambeau play other weeks: LIV Golf.  

“It matters where you play to be sharp, to be at your best, to test yourself against the best, which they’re not playing against the best week in and week out,” Chamblee said. 

Chamblee’s comments, the latest in a series of shots at LIV, were said during Golf Channel’s “Live From the PGA Championship” show, and they came after Scottie Scheffler won the year’s second major by five strokes, while DeChambeau finished in a three-way tie for second, and Rahm finished in a nine-way tie for eighth. Scheffler, who played the final three holes over the weekend at one-under par, plays his golf on the PGA Tour, and Chamblee said he’s at the “highest level.”

Both DeChambeau and Rahm had held at least a share of the lead at a point on the weekend — but the final three holes at Quail Hollow Club, dubbed “the Green Mile,” were troublesome for the two-time major winners. During Saturday’s third round, DeChambeau bogeyed the 16th and double-bogeyed the 17th, and he bogeyed the 18th on Sunday.

Rahm, meanwhile, rallied to tie Scheffler early into the back nine on Sunday, but Rahm bogeyed 16 and double-bogeyed 17 and 18 to tumble out of contention. Playing two groups behind him, Scheffler parred 16 and 17 and bogeyed 18, though he was up by six shots at that point. 

“When it mattered the most,” Chamblee said on Golf Channel, “16, 17 and 18, when you had to hit shots, when you had to control your nerves, when you had to control the rhythm of your golf swing, Scottie had it, Bryson didn’t, Rahm didn’t.” 

In looking at major leaderboards over the past year for the three golfers, DeChambeau’s runner-up finish was his second consecutive at the PGA Championship, and he also won last year’s U.S. Open, missed the cut at last year’s Open Championship and finished fifth at this year’s Masters. As for Rahm and Scheffler, Rahm missed the cut at last year’s PGA, withdrew from last year’s U.S. Open due to injury, tied for seventh at last year’s Open Championship and tied for 14th at this year’s Masters, and Scheffler tied for eighth (2024 PGA), tied for 41st (2024 U.S. Open), tied for seventh (2024 Open Championship) and finished fourth (this year’s Masters).

On the show, host Rich Lerner then asked Paul McGinley, another analyst, if he agreed with Chamblee — and he said he did, citing LIV’s format, venues and schedule. 

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“I think it’s hard to make an argument that LIV prepares you to win major championships,” McGinley said, “because they are playing team events, they’re not playing on the most difficult golf courses, and they’re traveling around the world and then having to come back to America to play three to four majors. Those things alone.

“There’s a great quote from a Navy Seal that’s widely used in leadership. What do you do under pressure? And he says, I sink to the level of my training. And the training that the guys get on LIV, the way they play on LIV, it’s not the same intensity as the PGA Tour. Nobody can argue that.”

McGinley also countered the argument by saying that both DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, another LIV Golf pro, have won majors, and that recency bias makes it easy to say they can’t win golf’s biggest event. But he finished his point this way: 

“It’s hard to make an argument that going to LIV is going to give you a better chance of winning a major,” he said.

“I don’t care. You can argue that all day long. There’s no way that I can see that that is a better and more productive pathway to be prepared to win majors.”