Kevin Cunningham
Getty Pictures
When a report broke this week that the PGA of America is contemplating paying U.S. Ryder Cup gamers for the primary time in historical past, European gamers comparable to Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry had been fast to register their disagreement. Now Brandel Chamblee is leaping into the fray.
On Tuesday, James Corrigan of The Telegraph reported that the PGA is nearing settlement on a plan to pay American Ryder Cup members $400,000 to compete for his or her nation at Bethpage Black subsequent 12 months.
When requested in regards to the report, McIlroy and Lowry, two stars of the European Ryder Cup staff, got here out in opposition to the thought, with McIlroy telling the Irish Golfer he “would pay for the privilege to play the Ryder Cup,” and Lowry equally telling reporters on the DP World Tour Championship that he didn’t care about getting paid as a result of “the Ryder Cup is a privilege.”
Wednesday evening, Chamblee, a former Tour professional and longtime Golf Channel analyst with a penchant for supporting the standard facets of the sport, took to X to share his personal displeasure with the Ryder Cup pay concept.
He first acknowledged that Rory “hits the nail on the top,” earlier than unloading on a “few gamers with misdirected and undo energy” who he claims are treating your complete recreation of golf as “transactional.”
Chamblee went additional, declaring that those self same gamers are inflicting leisure golfers, whom he referred to as “the lifeblood of the sport,” to show “away from those who play it professionally.”
Along with a “commentary on greed” about Michelangelo, Chamblee shared his personal issue accepting the methods during which the sport of golf is being reworked by cash, stating, “the rising commoditization of this recreation is a troublesome capsule to swallow.”
You’ll be able to learn Chamblee’s feedback in full under.
“As soon as once more Rory hits the nail on the top. It’s a tragic commentary on the skilled recreation that a number of gamers with misdirected and undo energy deal with each side of this recreation, together with the privilege of taking part in for one’s nation, as transactional. They’re the rationale the very lifeblood of this recreation, which is to say those who play it recreationally, are more and more turning away from those who play it professionally.”
The rising commoditization of this recreation is a troublesome capsule to swallow. I just lately learn a commentary on greed that went one thing like this: Consider Michelangelo, who in in search of to merely honor the glory of man, carved the statue of David, and wanting to focus on the capability that people have for compassionate struggling, he carved the Pieta.
Neither of those masterpieces had been motivated by cash, they had been motivated by wanting to attract the human spirit upward.
To play on the highest degree, gamers need to rediscover the rationale to pursue the best degree. And it isn’t for cash. It’s merely striving to take full benefit of 1’s abilities and sources to easily see how good they will turn out to be. And sometimes give again to the sport by taking part in for one’s nation.
And, dare I say, for the privilege of it, and never the revenue of it.”
The controversy over Ryder Cup pay will not be a brand new one. In first bubbled up finally 12 months’s Ryder Cup in Rome, when a report alleged that U.S. staff member Patrick Cantlay refused to put on a Crew USA hat on the competitors in protest of not getting paid.
The report, which Cantlay denied, set off intrigue on the course, with followers jeering at Cantlay and U.S. gamers. Ultimately it set off a close to dust-up amongst gamers and caddies on Saturday evening that continued off the course within the car parking zone.
The recent-button subject has prolonged to the Presidents Cup. Golfweek reported that U.S. Presidents Cup gamers on the 2024 occasion got a $250,000 stipend to do with as they please, a change from the previous when gamers had been solely in a position to donate their portion of the Presidents Cup funds to charity.
The 2025 Ryder Cup will get underway Friday, September twenty sixth, 2025, at Bethpage Black in New York.
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Kevin Cunningham
Golf.com Editor
As managing producer for GOLF.com, Cunningham edits, writes and publishes tales on GOLF.com, and manages the model’s e-newsletters, which attain greater than 1.4 million subscribers every month. A former two-time intern, he additionally helps preserve GOLF.com buzzing outdoors the news-breaking tales and repair content material supplied by our reporters and writers, and works with the tech staff within the improvement of recent merchandise and revolutionary methods to ship an enticing web site to our viewers.