“The perfect main” – they’re the three phrases which have brought on a stir on the earth of golf.
Former skilled turned broadcaster Brandel Chamblee has often been polarising for his feedback on air.
FOX SPORTS, obtainable on Kayo Sports activities, is streaming The 2026 PGA Tour LIVE & Unique | New to Kayo? Be a part of now and get your first month for simply $1.
Usually, it has been his critiques of LIV Golf which have sparked a confrontation on social media.
This time, nevertheless, it was in regards to the standing inside the sport of one of many PGA Tour’s largest occasions.
The Gamers Championship all the time taking the highlight in March when the PGA Tour’s greatest descend on TPC Sawgrass for a slice of the US$25 million prize purse, that for a while was the largest within the sport.
To start out the construct as much as Rory McIlroy’s title defence, commercials in the US have aired with that slogan – “March goes to be main”.
“I hope you seen our use of the phrase that we’ve considerably shied away from over the past 10 years,” event director Lee Smith mentioned.
“It is a sign of the arrogance, momentum, and offence that’s popping out of our constructing as of late. We’re assured in regards to the {qualifications} of The Gamers Championship. We needed to begin a dialog.”
Regardless of Smith’s feedback in regards to the previous decade, the Gamers Championship has tied itself to the moniker of “the fifth main” for a very long time.
It’s a time period that a number of occasions have tried to put declare to over the journey, together with the Australian Open.
And it’s a intelligent advertising plot by any event that isn’t The Masters, the US PGA Championship, the US Open or The Open Championship.
However Chamblee went even tougher.
“What constitutes a serious championship?” the 63-year-old requested throughout the Waste Administration Phoenix Open.
“In fact, it’s historical past and custom and reverence and all these issues. However on the core, these are arduous occasions to win. They’re meant to be tougher occasions to win due to the stress, due to the setup — as a result of all the things is correct on that line.
“They’ve acquired to be arduous occasions to win, they’ve acquired to have nice fields, they usually’ve acquired to supply indelible champions and indelible moments.”
Colin Morikawa CLINICAL on 18 | 00:48
“Whenever you take a look at the Gamers Championship, with all due respect to the opposite 4 main championships, it’s the greatest area in golf. It’s the deepest area in golf,” Chamblee continued.
“And by advantage of the truth that just one particular person in its 50-year historical past has managed to efficiently defend it, I might argue that it’s the hardest main championship to win. All of the others have had much more profitable defenses.
“Particularly because it moved to TPC Sawgrass, which in my estimation — save for one gap — is arguably the most effective golf course on which they play a serious championship from a shot-values perspective. You may speak about aesthetics all you need, risk-reward holes definitely, however from a shot-value standpoint, you can not contact TPC Sawgrass.”
Then got here the sentence that really sparked the controversy.
“So, in each single manner {that a} metric may very well be used to measure whether or not one thing is a serious, The Gamers, to me, stands alone and above the opposite 4 main championships — not simply as a serious,” Chamblee mentioned.
“It’s, in my estimation, the most effective main.”
Get all the most recent golf information, highlights and evaluation delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports activities Sportmail. Join now!!!
Chamblee’s feedback have gone down like a lead balloon.
His Golf Channel colleague Johnson Wagner passionately disagreed when talking on the Golf on CBS YouTube channel.
“I’m not a fan of this take,” Wagner mentioned.
“It looks like the PGA Tour put out one thing that mentioned March is main, after which I nearly surprise if Brandel is getting just a little kickback for this, as a result of it simply made no sense the way in which he mentioned it’s the most effective main championship golf course as effectively.
“He mentioned apart from the seventeenth gap, and I’m sorry you assume that is higher than Shinnecock, higher than Augusta, Pebble. I imply, there’s plenty of nice main championship venues that require these shot values he was speaking about.
“So, The Gamers is an unbelievable occasion. I’ve performed in plenty of them. They deal with us so effectively that week. And I really like the golf course, the followers, all the things about it. However it’s such as you mentioned, be the most effective non-major there may be. And so they do it nice yr in, yr out. The need of being known as a serious is infuriating.”
In the meantime, LIV poked enjoyable at what Chamblee mentioned with a social media video of commentators Arlo White and David Feherty speaking about why LIV Adelaide must be the fifth main throughout final week’s occasion.
The gamers themselves have taken an identical stance.
Though, a number of former champions have joked that it could be good to have their win/s at TPC Sawgrass added to their main tallies.
“Look, I’d like to have seven majors as a substitute of 5, that sounds nice,” Rory McIlroy mentioned earlier this month.
Australia as a nation would profit immensely if the change was applied.
Current day heroes Adam Scott, Jason Day and Cameron Smith would all be a number of winners.
Whereas Greg Norman and Steve Elkington (two Gamers titles) would each develop into three-time main champions if the historical past books have been re-written.
However it’s a risk that doesn’t excite the fashionable day gamers.
“I believe The Gamers is among the greatest golf tournaments on the earth. I don’t assume anybody disputes that or argues that,” McIlroy continued.
“I believe from a participant perspective, it’s wonderful. I believe from an on-site fan expertise it’s wonderful. It’s an incredible golf course, location, venue. However I don’t — like once more, I’m a traditionalist, I’m a historian of the sport. We now have 4 main championships.
“If you wish to see what 5 main championships appears to be like like, take a look at the ladies’s sport. I don’t understand how effectively that went for them. However it’s The Gamers. Prefer it doesn’t should be anything.
“Like I might say it’s acquired extra of an identification than the PGA Championship does on the minute. So like from an identification standpoint, I believe The Gamers has acquired it nailed. However I believe The Gamers may be — it’s an incredible event in its personal proper.
“And I don’t assume it being categorized a serious or not a serious makes it any extra or any much less. I’m nonetheless very proud to have received that event twice as I’m positive all the opposite champions are. I don’t assume — it stands by itself with out the label, I suppose.”
Unlikely American claims LIV Adelaide | 01:02
McIlroy’s photographs on the girls’s skilled sport and the PGA Championship have taken the controversy additional.
LPGA star Charley Hull responded to McIlroy’s remark in regards to the 5 girls’s majors by saying: “I’m very completely satisfied having 5 majors. It’s yet another likelihood to win than the lads!”
Though, confusion has occurred lately when the historical past books are opened.
Final yr Australia’s Minjee Lee was unaware that she was one win away from the profession grand slam after claiming the Ladies’s PGA Championship.
It was the third main title of Lee’s profession, after earlier triumphs on the Ladies’s US Open and the Evian Championship, however as a way to defend the historical past of the ladies’s sport, successful 4 majors remains to be considered the profession grand slam.
Profitable all 5 majors is named the ‘tremendous profession grand slam’, a feat achieved by Australian legend Karrie Webb.
In the meantime, it was not the primary time McIlroy took a dig on the PGA Championship.
Final yr when discussing iconic venues he would like to win at, McIlroy quipped in regards to the 2027 host course: “I’d like to win a PGA at PGA Frisco… not”.
The view that the PGA will not be on the identical pedestal as the opposite majors has led to rising calls that it must be moved outdoors of the US.
Three of golf’s 4 majors are performed within the US.
Whereas tennis shares its grand slams between Australia, the UK, France and the US.
It’s a extra world mannequin that many wish to see golf come nearer to.
Former Scottish skilled turned Sky Sports activities commentator Ewan Murray echoed golf followers around the globe final yr when he shared the identical view.
“It’s a championship I’d wish to see transfer around the globe,” Murray mentioned.
“It will be pretty to have the PGA down there in Australia. Perhaps one over in Asia. South Africa, with its involvement, perhaps ought to have a serious each from time to time
“And so they can try this as a result of the Worldwide Federation of PGA Excursions is world, it’s worldwide.”
At LIV Adelaide, former world No.1 Jon Rahm additionally provided an opinion that was music to the ears of Australian golf followers.
“The one different sport you may examine it to is tennis,” Rahm mentioned. “Tennis has two (grand slams) in Europe, one in America and one in Australia.
“I believe it will possibly get just a little bit controversial (for golf). Do you create a brand new one? Do you progress one of many ones you will have? It’s very tough. The sport of golf is world and large enough to do one thing like that. It’s definitely value a dialogue.
“For those who have been to ask me, I believe the nation with the next and golf programs large enough to do one thing like that, if you happen to have been going to take it out of US, is Australia.
“Not solely as a result of I’m right here (in Adelaide). As a Spanish man, I might like to have it in Spain. However The Open is shut sufficient and we have now Ryder Cups. For those who’re going to be truthful, I believe Australia is probably the most deserving nation for that.”
Fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia agreed.
“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Not solely Australia, there’s so many locations on the earth that you’ve got an important golf following. Clearly, Australia is one among them,” the 2017 Masters champion replied when requested the identical query.
Understandably, Australia’s Cameron Smith had an identical viewpoint off the again of the success of LIV Adelaide and the document crowds at Royal Melbourne for McIlroy’s look on the Australian Open in December.
“I believe it could be cool for (Asia Pacific) to have a serious,” Smith mentioned.
“I believe the Australian Open may be that occasion. It confirmed final yr what it’s able to. I hope it retains trending in the identical route.
“I might love an occasion in Australia just like the Masters the place all the great gamers confirmed up, have been there for per week, liked it and acquired handled effectively.”
However Northern Irishman McIlroy stopped in need of becoming a member of the refrain regardless of expressing his love for Australia throughout his current journey.
McIlroy is locked in to play the Australian Open once more at Kingston Heath this December, however his resolution to the PGA Championship drawback is just a minor tweak.
One that will tie it to the previous.
“I believe glory’s final shot,” McIlroy mentioned.
“I believe it wants to return to August.”
Such a transfer would area out a condensed main schedule that at present consists of The Masters in April, the PGA in Might, the US Open in June and The Open in July.
Formally making The Gamers the fifth main would make the schedule much more jam-packed.
For now, golf followers can merely get pleasure from The Gamers for what it’s – the PGA Tour’s strongest area of any of its non-major occasions and a event the place the annual drama of the par 3 seventeenth island inexperienced captivates audiences.
Chamblee could not like that take, or the well-known seventeenth gap, however within the ever-changing panorama {of professional} golf, some issues can stay the identical.