In that grand experiment known as American democracy, nothing stirs the masses quite like anticipation for a good debate.
Think about how the Kennedy-Nixon debates shaped the 1960 presidential election. Or, Carter-Reagan in 1980. And then there was that memorable 1992 three-ball with the elder Bush, Clinton and outlier Ross Perot.
Well, the golf world might have something far more entertaining in the works: Phil Mickelson vs. Brandel Chamblee. In a uniquely 21st-century way, the tiff – with its roots in LIV Golf – heated up on social media last week, despite the fact that the two adversaries have blocked each other on Twitter.
Claude Harmon III, grandson and namesake of the late Masters champion and son of noted instructor Butch Harmon, started things when he leaped to pupil Brooks Koepka’s defense. Chamblee, the sharp-tongued NBC/Golf Channel commentator, had criticized LIV Golf and members such as Koepka, who won the PGA Championship. In an interview with Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, Harmon called Chamblee “a paid actor” for his dismissal of LIV Golf and its players.
Tee up social media. Chamblee responded in a 538-word missive on Twitter that Harmon is merely trying to “obfuscate” LIV Golf’s Saudi-funded “sportswashing” and that the rival second-year tour is “undermining the dignity intrinsic in golf.”
Mickelson, rising to his employer LIV’s defense, tweeted that Chamblee “can’t handle” criticism, adding: “He’s softer now than he was as a player.”
Ouch. Chamblee, a one-time winner on the PGA Tour, invited Mickelson to an on-camera debate on Golf Channel’s “Live From” set in two weeks during the U.S. Open in Los Angeles.
Mickelson says he would welcome the challenge, but with one caveat: Anywhere but on Golf Channel, he tweeted.
As Americans pause today to honor the nation’s fallen military veterans, the solemnity of the occasion should not be defiled by another brattish social-media outburst. Just don’t expect Mickelson and Chamblee to remain silent for long.
Maddie Meyer, PGA of America
LIV Golf announced that tournaments can be live-streamed via pay-per-view on the tour’s YouTube channel. The news came two weeks after most affiliates of the CW Network, which broadcasts LIV Golf in the U.S., cut away before a playoff at LIV Golf Tulsa involving Cameron Smith, Branden Grace and eventual winner Dustin Johnson. READ MORE
CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus defended his network’s coverage of LIV golfers in the recent PGA Championship amid criticism, much of it on social media, that the rival tour’s members were kept off the air too much. “I’m proud of the fact that from watching our coverage, you’d have no idea who was a LIV golfer and who was a PGA Tour golfer,” McManus told Golf.com’s James Colgan. READ MORE
Major champions Jason Day and Patrick Reed were among 33 players to earn U.S. Open exemptions via the Official World Golf Ranking via the May 22 update, the USGA announced. Also, as expected, Tiger Woods withdrew as the three-time U.S. Open champion recovers from recent surgery relating to his reconstructed right leg, which was mangled in a single-vehicle rollover crash in early 2021. READ MORE
U.S. Open Final Qualifying will be held at 10 sites – nine in the U.S. and one in Canada – on Monday, June 5, as the USGA works to complete the field for the 2023 U.S. Open on June 15-18 at Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course. One spot will remain open for the winner of the RBC Canadian Open, which ends June 11, if he is not already qualified.
TAP-INS
Texas Tech’s Ludvig Åberg won his second consecutive Ben Hogan Award, becoming only the second repeat winner. Åberg, a senior from Eslov, Sweden, won four tournaments in nine starts entering the NCAA Championship and is No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and in the PGA Tour University Ranking. He joins Jon Rahm, the 2015 and ’16 honoree from Arizona State, as the only back-to-back champions on the list of Hogan Award winners. The Ben Hogan Award, named after the late nine-time major champion, recognizes the top player in college and amateur golf and includes professional appearances during the past year. Åberg received the award last week before the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, which was Hogan’s longtime home. READ MORE
One day after repeating as the NCAA Division I women’s champion, Stanford’s Rose Zhang added her second consecutive Annika Award as the top female collegiate golfer. Zhang, a sophomore from Irvine, California, who turned professional after the NCAAs, won eight times this season and set a Stanford record with 12 victories, eclipsing the school career marks of Tiger Woods, Patrick Rodgers and Maverick McNealy. She joined Maria Fassi, who won the Annika in 2018 and ’19 at Arkansas, as the only repeat winner of the award. READ MORE
Joie Chitwood III, a longtime motorsports executive who for the past two years served as the tournament director of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, has been named executive director of the 2026 Presidents Cup, the PGA Tour announced. The biennial matches between the top American male professionals and their International counterparts will be played at Medinah (Illinois) Country Club. READ MORE
The final stage of PGA Tour Q-School will be held December 14-17 at TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley Course and the nearby Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the tour announced. For the first time since 2012, access to the PGA Tour instead of the top developmental tour will be at stake. The top five finishers and ties will earn PGA Tour exemptions for 2024, with the rest of the finishers earning various Korn Ferry Tour status. READ MORE
New Zealand’s Ryan Fox and Australia’s Min Woo Lee have accepted special temporary membership for the rest of the PGA Tour season, the tour announced. They will be eligible to accept unlimited sponsor exemptions as they attempt to earn exempt status for 2024. READ MORE
The final round of the PGA Championship televised on CBS Sports averaged 4.51 million viewers, the smallest audience since 2008. Final-round viewership was down 14 percent from last year’s PGA. READ MORE
Four Japanese players – Kensei Hirata, Keita Nakajima, Takumi Kanaya and Kazuki Yasumori – qualified for the Open Championship via the Japan Golf Tour’s Mizuno Open, which is part of the R&A’s Open Qualifying Series. Hirata defeated Nakajima on the third hole of a playoff to win his first JGT title. READ MORE
CBS Sports commentator Jim Nantz will collaborate on Tepetonka Club’s new short course The Prox in New London, Minnesota, the club announced. READ MORE
The LPGA launched a line of branded clubs, accessories and shoes for female beginners and juniors, with affordability and entry-level access in mind, to be sold at Walmart, the tour announced. READ MORE
A new par-3 course is under construction on the site of Payne’s Valley Golf Course, a 3-year-old Tiger Woods public-access design at Big Cedar Lodge in Hollister, Missouri, reported Wyatt D. Wheeler of the Springfield News-Leader newspaper. READ MORE
Cole Anderson, a Florida State redshirt junior from Camden, Maine, has been added to the U.S. men’s team for next week’s Arnold Palmer Cup matches. The annual matches, which pit the top male and female American collegians against their International counterparts, will be played June 8-10 at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, about 11 miles southeast of the late namesake Palmer’s home in Latrobe. READ MORE
It was a painful week for the LPGA’s Korda sisters. First, Nelly Korda withdrew from this week’s Mizuho Americas Open after missing the cut at the recent Founders Cup, citing back soreness. Then, over the weekend, older sister Jessica Korda said in a posting on her Instagram account that she will be out of action indefinitely because of back pain. Nelly, 24, is an eight-time winner on the LPGA and ranked No. 2 in the world, but she has not won since late last year. Jessica, 30, a six-time champion, has not won in 2½ years and has slipped to No. 31 in the rankings.
Compiled by Steve Harmon