The 2025 PLAYERS Championship turned out to be one of the standout tournaments of the year. For all the right reasons! It was a thrilling contest across four days that saw players move in and out of the top 10 with ease and the unforgiving course made it difficult to maintain consistency, a big challenge for the players. In the end, two players stood out, Rory McIlroy and JJ Spaun.
The duo never went out of the Top 10, displaying consistently strong golf across the event, and ended up tying for the first spot, leading to playoffs on Monday. The Northern Irish golfer triumphed over the American across the three-hole playoff, claiming his second title at the TPC Sawgrass and joining an elite group of eight golfers who have won the PLAYERS twice or more. He also, for the first time, in his career has now won two events before teeing up at the majors. Talk about a good omen! Now, let’s talk numbers.
So, Rory McIlroy’s PLAYERS Championship playoff and subsequent victory against JJ Spaun seemed to do well! The 3-hole playoff reportedly drew in 1.5 million viewers for the Golf Channel. This is despite the competition happening on a busy Monday morning. It is a commendable number for the PGA Tour, something worth celebrating, given all the viewership troubles it has been having lately.
The 2024 season saw the Tour suffer a 3% loss in viewership, whereas its rivals experienced an increase of 50%. Even The Sentry, saw a decline in viewership. Unlike the 2024 edition of the tournament, which had 707K viewers, the number for Hideki Matsuyama’s record-breaking win was only 461 K. But this small Tour success came at the cost of LIV, at the behest of Brandel Chamblee.
The self-proposed LIV Golf hater drew comparisons to the LIV Golf Chicago 2024. The event, which the Spaniard Jon Rahm won, reportedly only drew in 55,000 viewers and that was despite it being the final individual competition of the season. The victory then had vaulted Rahm to the top of the LIV Standings, but the viewership did raise some concerns. Do you know what Chamblee wrote in the end? “People tune in to sports that matter.”
Compare this to LIV’s finale last year that concluded in prime time on the east coast with Rahm winning…which drew 55,000 viewers.
People tune in to sports that matter. https://t.co/Vi4HmiNqNs
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) March 18, 2025
Well.. if this isn’t an ode to his dislike towards the Saudi-funded league, we don’t know what is. Chamblee saying that LIV does not matter is like him saying Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 US Open by luck, not by hard work. Just on January 17 this year, he blatantly called LIV worst, “Why would anyone who is not being paid to obscure their objectivity “cover” LIV in a positive manner. The money comes from the sewer and the product stinks worse than the source.” Well, Chamblee is not the one to mince words.
Do you remember in May 2024, in an interview with Golf WRX, he called LIV stupid? “The format for LIV is just stupid. There’s no other word for it. 54 holes, 54 players start. Willy nilly here and there. Nobody winning a golf tournament should finish on the third hole on some par three while his closest competitors finish on the 17th hole or the 18th hole. It’s just a laughable concept. There’s no way to judge the talents of these players out there,” he said.
Now, we all know LIV Golf does give big financial payouts to the players, but it has yet to translate to profit. Notably, LIV Golf’s UK arm has filed its financial accounts for 2023, which show that its total losses rose 62 percent year-over-year to US$395.9 million. LIV is also struggling to find its footing and garner viewers on a similar scale to the PGA Tour. Time and again, Chamblee has poked fun at the Saudi-backed league, and the players.
Brandel Chamblee’s LIV-hate relationship
Most recently Brandel Chamblee aimed jibes at two LIV golfers, stating that they are not as good as they are thought to be by the LIV faithful. “Niemann, yeah, he’s a good player, but let’s not pretend that he’s as good as they pretend he is. He’s played in 22 majors and never even finished in the top 15. Seven missed cuts.” Niemann is currently one of the most informed golfers in the LIV circuit (he currently leads the individual points list),
Talor Gooch was also on the receiving end of criticism from Chamblee. The American golfer was the individual points leader for the 2023 LIV Golf season and was compared to many of the top players on the PGA Tour like Rory McIlroy. “They keep acting like he’s[Niemann] the next Rory McIlroy, the same way they were talking about Talor Gooch last year, who, by the way, played in three majors, missed two cuts, and finished 34th in the other (in 2023), so turns out he’s not as good as they said he was.”
Do you think the former PGA Tour pro is justified in criticizing LIV Golf and its players? Or do you think he goes over the top with his ‘hateful’ takes about the Saudi-backed Tour?
The post Brandel Chamblee Takes a Brutal Dig at Jon Rahm After Rory McIlroy’s Win Brings Major Success to PGA Tour appeared first on EssentiallySports.
