.jpg&h=600&w=850&c=0&s=1 "Cleary: A LIV player can win the U.S Open, Brandel's off his head")
With nine holes to play in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, there was an old-fashioned two-horse war. It was like Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star at Moonee Valley in the 1986 W.S Cox Plate. Two mighty thoroughbreds, straining, fighting, charging home for the win. It was quite exciting.
For there was Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm, the pair locked at nine-under. Scheffler had gone out in two-over 37. Rahm – who had begun the round five shots back – had birdied eight, 10 and 11.
And the big crowd in Charlotte knew the big Spaniard was coming.
Buckle up, sports fans. This is war.
When Rahm missed gettable birdies, and Scheffler birdied 14 and 15, and Rahm finished bogey-double-double – and no-one else was mounting a challenge, including Bryson DeChambeau, who began and ended his round five shots back - the ridiculously good, stuff it, great, 28-year-old Scheffler was a phoenix on a cakewalk, striding to victory from DeChambeau (-6) and Harris English (-6) who came from the clouds with a last round 65.
While most marvelled at the preternatural skill and nerve and all the rest of this most worthy champion, a player who had dominated the world’s best as nobody had since 2000 Tiger Woods, for one man, TV talking head and former player, Brandel Chamblee, it was “evidence” that playing on the LIV tour was detrimental to Rahm and DeChambeau winning that major tournament.
“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.
“When it mattered the most, 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.”
Now, it’s the man’s job, as it was Johnny Miller’s, to hold vigorous opinion that brooks no argument, offers precious little nuance much less balance.
Thing is, even if you can find yourself nodding along to the Accepted Wisdom of his home-spun homilies, it’s what’s left out that matters if you do want nuance, balance, even let's call it truth, about LIV golfers' chances in majors compared to anyone else's.
Because DeChambeau, you now, won the U.S Open in 2024. His finish in this year's PGA Championship was his second consecutive runner-up after Valhalla in 2024. He was T6 and T5 in the previous two iterations of the Masters at Augusta National.
You spin all that enough and it could be “proof” that LIV Golf’s format is beneficial to peaking for the majors. It certainly appears to be for that player, right?
And if Chamblee thinks DeChambeau, and Rahm, playing LIV golf instead of the PGA Tour is the reason they couldn’t chase Scheffler home at Quail Hollow, Chamblee is off his head.
The idea that either player wasn't able to match Scheffler's play because he was emotionally, mentally or meta-physically tired, or something, because they hadn’t been grinding away in select signature events against PGA Tour players on PGA Tour golf courses, well ... how do you prove it?
You could argue competing for Boston Common playing virtual golf in a climate-controlled bunker in Florida helped Rory McIlroy win the Masters. And you, like Brandel, would also be off your head.
A player's preparation for a major is more nuanced than four legs good, two legs bad. What works for the Mad Scientist might not necessarily for The Chef. Min Woo Lee – who’s been competing with the very best of them on the 72-hole PGA Tour rota-come-meat-grinder that Chamblee believes you must play on in order to hold your nerves in majors – missed the cut at Quail Hollow.
PGA Tour players Ludvid Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama and Will Zalatoris missed the same cut as LIV players Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka and Eugenio Chacarra.
Jason Day missed it. Sepp Straka missed it. Jordan Spieth missed it. Phil Mickelson missed it.
Yet, playing no-cut golf over 54 holes 14 times a year is detrimental to winning major championships? Again, how does that explain DeChambeau winning the U.S Open?
Is the conceit that, had Rahm and Smith and Koepka stayed on the PGA Tour, they may have up and beaten Schefler at any of the last few majors he's won? If so, what stopped Pat Cantlay, Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele from doing that?
There’s no hard and fast way to prepare for a major championship. Adam Scott’s preparation is different from Dustin Johnson’s. And you can get massively long odds for the pair of them at Oakmont this week.
It’s horses for courses. And the argument that LIV Golf is bad for competitiveness in majors does rather miss the point that there were 140-odd golfers in the PGA Championship field who also either missed the cut, sputtered out, or couldn’t hold a flame to the all-conquering Scheffler on a golf course tricked into U.S Open-style brutality.
LIV player, PGA Tour player, DP World, Asian, amateur, didn't matter - Scheffler smashed everyone.
Chamblee’s co-host Paul McGinley largely agreed with Chamblee, yet was a tad more balanced.
“There’s a great quote from a Navy Seal that’s widely used in leadership," McGinley said "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. That is true.
"Having said that, they do come close. Brooks has won a Major, Bryson has won a Major [since moving to LIV]. It's easy, with recency bias, to say that they can't win. But I'd agree with you to say that going to LIV is going to give you a better chance in winning a Major.
"I don’t care. You can argue that all day long. There’s no way that I can see [LIV] is a better and more productive pathway to be prepared to win majors.”
So, maybe it's not better. Maybe it's worse.
Or, maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t make any bloody difference at all.
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