Brandel Chamblee and David Duval welcomed viewers to Ryder Cup week last night with one of the more heated exchanges on live TV in recent memory. During a segment of Live From The Ryder Cup, the two men got into the subject of team leadership and boy did it escalate quickly. All Frank Nobilo could do was watch in awe.
Basically, zero-time Ryder Cupper Chamblee assigns blame to individual players for losses, while two-time Ryder Cupper and former world number one, David Duval, believes losses are a product of execution. We’ll let you decide.
Here’s where it starts:
Duval: “You can’t assign the losses to certain players.”
Chamblee: “Oh, yeah you can.”
Duval: “Oh, without question you cannot.”
Chamblee: “Well I think you can.”
Duval: “You can assign a losing record to Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods?”
Chamblee: “The leadership of every team determines whether or not teams win. Does the leadership fill that role?”
Duval: “We talk about it all the time that it comes down to making putts and executing golf shots. I’m not exactly sure what leadership role, if it’s Jordan Spieth in today’s game or Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson 10 years ago has to do with a match that they’re not participating in. I’m not sure how that leadership is going to affect that outcome. You have to execute out there.”
Chamblee: A team takes on the personality of its leadership, and if there is apathetic leadership there will be an apathetic performance. Every single player that was at the caliber of Tiger and Phil, going back as far as you want to go, has a winning record in the Ryder Cup and correspondingly their teams won … the two that did not play up to their world rank are Tiger and Phil.”
Then Duval decided to drop the hammer:
Duval: “Well having actually been out there and done it, there’s more to it than just what the stats say.”
Chamblee: “You think that actually having to be out there to do it, determines whether or not you can pass judgement on it or not? I wasn’t at the Boston Tea Party but I can tell you all about it.”
Duval: “OK, well I know you’re never wrong I understand that.”
Buckle up people, Ryder Cup week is only getting warmed up.
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