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I’m not, in any respect, an skilled on Brandel Chamblee’s day-to-day schedule, however I can inform you one thing about his whereabouts from mid-Could via the top of Memorial Day, and I share them right here as a result of they’re so telling.
Chamblee, the NBC Sports activities golf analyst, who will probably be working this week’s U.S. Open from a perch above Pinehurst’s 18th inexperienced, was in Louisville for the PGA Championship. He went house in Scottsdale for a couple of days after which went on temporary however irresistible boys-will-be-boys multi-state golf journey. He returned house once more for a couple of days, awakened early on Memorial Day and flew from Phoenix to Philadelphia, en path to the Marriott in downtown Lancaster, Pa., and U.S. Women’s Open on the Lancaster Nation Membership. However earlier than heading there, my colleague Darren Riehl (the producer of this sequence) and I took Brandel on an afternoon-into-evening tour of some U.S. Open backyard spots, Philly-style.
There’s lots you possibly can take from that two-week snapshot however let me counsel this: The person is on the entrance door of 62, he’s been immersed within the sport for nearly 50 years — and my sense is golf has by no means meant extra to him than it does now.
Our first cease was the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. We went there to see Willie Anderson’s gravesite. It’s possible you’ll know that Willie Anderson was a Scot who received 4 U.S. Opens. I advised Brandel that the boxing legend Joe Frazier was additionally buried at Ivy Hill. He knew. Brandel advised me that the tennis legend Invoice Tilden was buried on the Ivy Hill. I didn’t. The issues this man is aware of.
darren riehl/GOLF Originals
Brandel talked about Anderson with such depth you might need thought Willie A. was a golfer Chamblee noticed as schoolboy golfer in Texas. Anderson received his Opens in 1901, ’03, ’04 and ’05. It frustrates Chamblee that so little is understood about Anderson’s swing, to say nothing of his GIR stats.
Chamblee is a golf unique, and a GOLF Authentic, the fourth in our month-to-month lineup that, so far, has introduced you David Feherty in March, Tom Doak in April, Mike Whan in Could and now Chamblee. No one has ever mixed an encyclopedic data of golf historical past with a capability to research swings and knowledge as Chamblee does. If you wish to know extra about fashionable golf and the way it’s performed, you actually ought to learn Brandel, take heed to Brandel and watch Brandel.
“Golf will get in your blood,” he says right here, on this 25-minute GOLF Originals mini-doc video that exhibits sides of Brandel Chamblee you don’t get to see in his common Golf Channel appearances. “You may’t get away from it,” Chamblee says right here of the sport. You may’t get away from it, and Chamblee doesn’t need to, anyhow. His Could itinerary, and every little thing he shares on this video, will inform you that.
We went from Anderson’s gravesite to Merion’s thirteenth tee to the green on the Philadelphia Nation Membership the place Byron Nelson holed a 1-iron on his option to successful the 1939 U.S. Open. Chamblee knew Byron Nelson. He didn’t know the Philadelphia Nation Membership, with its hilltop tees and in-the-valley greens. (The stroke-play portion of the 2026 U.S. Novice will probably be performed there and at Merion.) You could possibly sense Brandel’s pleasure, strolling the course the place Nelson received his lone Open and Sam Snead blew his greatest Open probability with a fourth-round triple bogey.
NBC’s U.S. Open plan includes Brandel Chamblee, surprising wrinkles
I really like the truth that Chamblee made our rounds in Philadelphia carrying a tailor-made blazer, a nod to the manners of a few of his forebears, most notably the professional Chamblee most brings to thoughts, the urbane Dave Marr, a fellow Texan with Manhattan sensibilities.
Brandel is aware of what number of U.S. Opens Snead would have received or performed off for the title had he shot last-round 69s. He is aware of as a result of he appeared it up and shared it with us as we took within the Nation Membership. A child performed by us. His swing pace was astonishing. His grip was, too — wildly sturdy. Chamblee watched with one thing like surprise.
Brandel Chamblee has sturdy and knowledgeable opinions about LIV Golf, the proposed golf-ball rollback, the sanctity of golf’s rulebook, and we, as abnormal golf-on-TV viewers, are fortunate to have them. However what we see right here is the roots of all of it, his deep, nice immersion on this sport.
“Every single day to get up, and have some goal, that retains you going?” Chamblee says. “It’s a present.”
Chamblee has mentioned one million of phrases over numerous broadcasts over the previous 20 or extra years. He would possibly say one million extra. These two sentences, shared with us on a fairway on the Philadelphia Nation Membership, need to stay without end.
It was previous 8:30 p.m. when Chamblee left Philadelphia Nation Membership, and, after a roadside dinner as he drove west to Lancaster, closing in on midnight on Memorial Day when he made it to his resort. A couple of days later, I noticed him on the U.S. Ladies’s Open. I apologized for a way lengthy we had saved him. “I loved it,” he mentioned. I don’t suppose he was being well mannered. He performed in six U.S. Opens. He’s been a part of a broadcast staff on one other 20 or extra. He had by no means been to Willie Anderson’s gravesite. He had by no means been to the Nelson plaque. He was studying stuff. He’s all the time studying stuff. This week, he’ll put that data to good use.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your feedback at [email protected]
