‘Talentless fool’: Brandel Chamblee, Anthony Kim get heated over Saudis, Tour

Brandel Chamblee

Brandel Chamblee in 2022.

Getty Images

Anthony Kim, over 43 words, including one NSFW, fired the first shot. 

Brandel Chamblee, over 225 words, answered. 

And the next golf Twitter feud may have been born.

It appeared to have started on Thursday, when a clip of Chamblee, a noted Golf Channel analyst, was shared where he said on the network that the PGA Tour should come to an agreement with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which also backs Tour rival LIV Golf. Notably, Chamblee has been openly critical of Saudi involvement in golf. 

Below is a 37-second video of Chamblee talking about the deal that’s been circulated over X, formerly known as Twitter, and below that are his words from the video. 

“Look, the PGA Tour is in this pickle, like it or not,” Chamblee said on Golf Channel, “but do you want to compete indefinitely with somebody who’s not going to go away who can outspend you, and if they’re in business, every move they make that makes their tour better dilutes your tour and causes more division within the tour. So the time is now, to Rory’s point [Rory McIlroy}, about making a deal. I wouldn’t have said that a year ago. I don’t think there’s a lot of people in the world of golf that would be particularly enamored with the idea of making this deal. But it is the better end of the bargain, at this point.” 

At 4:46 p.m. ET on Friday, Kim then posted a message seemingly in response. It’s not clear what he had heard of Chamblee’s thought, but Kim has joined LIV Golf this year after a lengthy hiatus away from professional golf. 

Below is a slightly edited version of the post, and you can read it in its entirety here

“Ramble Chamblee @chambleebrandel ur such a p***y 4 beating on ur chest & basically saying never retreat & hypocritically retreat,” wrote Kim. “It is well known this talentless fool is disliked by most people in the golf world. U still gonna cover golf if @livgolf_league is involved?”

Comments followed, including one from Chamblee on Friday that was last edited at 9:13 p.m. and included shots at LIV Golf’s Phil Mickelson, Kim’s parenting, the Saudis, LIV Golf and Kim’s golf game. Below is his post.

“This is about as inaccurate as a lot of Mickelson’s drives and sadly ironical coming two tweets after you asked for advice on raising your daughter that you would refer to someone as a female body part in a juvenile attempt to denigrate them,” Chamblee wrote. “It’s clear that you were not offered disability for your pithy takes. 

“As for your criticism of me saying a deal with the Saudis is the best deal for golf right now, it’s something I’ve said recently, because I don’t think the Saudis are going to turn away from the game and they will continue to be a poaching threat and dilute the product of the PGA Tour. It’s the sad reality of you and your brethren on the LIV tour willingly dealing with a murderous dictator for profit so that he can hide his atrocities, that golf has had to try to figure out how to mitigate the influence of MBS, PIF and LIV in the otherwise philanthropical and merit based world of professional golf. Now why don’t you get back to doing what you formerly did best, which is to wow the world with your talent. I don’t like LIV for a lot of reasons, but I certainly enjoyed your golf and would love to see you playing anything like the semblance of the golfer you used to be.”

As of late Saturday morning, Chamblee’s original post had received over 200 comments (and Chamblee had liked a handful of them), been shared over 50 times and been liked over 1,000 times. Kim’s post had received over 500 comments (and Kim had liked and responded to several of them), been shared over 250 times and been liked over 1,600 times. 

Nick Piastowski

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.