Brandel Chamblee is no stranger to making controversial remarks, and he dropped a whopper Wednesday, calling Tiger Woods the “most underachieving golfer in the history of the game.”
Chamblee made that statement on The Skip Bayless Show, and while it might seem to some like the ultimate “hot take” designed to create social media buzz, the Golf Channel analyst didn’t use it as a throwaway line. Instead, he provided a great deal of context defending that stance.
Bayless started the segment by talking about how Woods is missing this year’s Masters, which tees off Thursday. The five-time Masters champion is recovering from an Achilles injury he suffered last month.
“Let’s for a moment talk about the one man who’s not going to be there, Tiger Woods,” Bayless said. “He’s 49 years of age now, body obviously continues to break down unfortunately. He’s won one major in the last 17 years. … How amazed are you, Brandel, that he’s still the biggest name and biggest draw in golf at this stage and age?”
“I guess not very, because what he did, nobody had ever seen anything like it,” Chamblee said.
Chamblee pointed to Woods’ feats, not only winning majors and regular tournaments, but posting a big margin of victory in many of those events.
“He was so far superior to any of his peers, far, far more superior to his peers than [Bobby] Jones was, than [Ben] Hogan was, than [Jack] Nicklaus was,” Chamblee said.
The analyst went on to talk about Woods’ many issues through the years, and how he recovered from each. He came back from a broken leg to win the 2008 U.S. Open, brushed off the infamous scandal in 2012-2013 to reach World No. 1 again, and recovered from a bad back to win the Masters in 2019.
“Each comeback is more epic and more improbable than the previous one,” Chamblee said. “So he’s teased us into thinking the impossible can happen.”
“It just tears me up to think about how some of his injuries were self-inflicted after he dominated this game the way nobody has,” Bayless said. He went on to relay information from a 2012 book by Hank Haney, “The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods,” alleging that Woods tore his ACL while training with Navy SEALs in 2007. (Woods’ agent and other sources have denied that account.)
“Do you look back and say what could have been?” Bayless asked Chamblee.
“I would say he’s the most underachieving golfer in the history of the game,” Chamblee said, “and the way I get there is, I can think of no other golfer who left 10 to 15 major championships on the table. Who left 30 to 40 regular tour events on the table. Of course he’s the greatest player of all time, but he’s also at the same time the most underachieving. When you look at the time he spent in the prime of his career, not injured, but dismantling and then rebuilding a golf swing, only to arrive back at the exact same place that he started, at the expense of time.”
To call Woods “the most underachieving golfer in the history of the game” is quite a statement. Woods won 15 majors and a record-tying 82 PGA tournaments, and as Chamblee noted, he easily won many of those events. But Chamblee said Woods appeared on track to do so much more early in his career. Chamblee recalls that after Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open, broadcasters and other insiders were guessing how many majors Woods would win in his career.
“Nobody guessed beneath 20 majors at the end of his career,” Chamblee said. “It was 20-25 majors … and over 100 tour events. Look, it’s still a debate, a lot of people still think Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player of all time. I say it this way: Jack had the best career, in terms of major championships. Tiger played the better golf. Which would you rather have? Jack’s record is ungodly, 18 majors, 19 second-place finishes. But Tiger had a higher win percentage and won by wider margins.”
Given all that, Chamblee’s statement doesn’t seem so outrageous.
“The fact that he didn’t get done what we all thought he was going to get done, I think that’s part of the genius,” Chamblee said. “Genius is just mercurial and impossible to figure out, and Tiger was nothing if not a genius.”
About Arthur Weinstein
Arthur spends his free time traveling around the U.S. to sporting events, state and national parks, and in search of great restaurants off the beaten path.