Brandel Chamblee is not shy when it comes to giving his opinions, and he lived up to his reputation when discussing Collin Morikawa’s recent outburst at the Rocket Classic.
Chamblee has made a living in his role as a golf analyst by approaching every situation with a methodically thoughtful, yet no-nonsense approach.
So when Morikawa let loose at one journalist ahead of the Rocket Classic last week, you just knew that Chamblee would have something to say about it, and he didn’t let anyone down in that regard!
Morikawa officially split with long-term caddie JJ Jakovac at the start of May, and then decided to appoint Max Homa‘s former caddie Joe Greiner two weeks later.
Then, just before the Rocket Classic began, Morikawa decided to split with Greiner. That’s when all the controversy began.
The 28-year-old two-time major champion refused to answer questions from journalist Adam Schupak just ahead of his tee time at the Pro-Am.
Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
He then bizarrely let loose at Schupak during his press conference, and he didn’t stop there.
Morikawa ranted at the press again after his first round at the Rocket Classic, as he once again defended himself for failing to talk to the media way back in March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Now Chamblee has lifted the lid on exactly what happened in Detroit last week.
Brandel Chamblee discloses full story about Collin Morikawa incident
Chamblee was speaking on his ‘The Favorite Chamblee Podcast’, and attention turned to the controversy involving Morikawa and Schupak.
And the one-time PGA Tour winner turned golf analyst and commentator revealed exactly what happened between the golfer and the journalist.
“Another dust-up was Collin Morikawa at the Rocket Classic getting chippy again about a story that was written,” Chamblee said. “The source of the story was Adam Schupak, and I called Adam to get to the bottom of it, because I read the story, because it didn’t really make sense to me. And essentially Adam said that he had heard that Collin had fired his caddie, the second caddie he had fired in a short period of time.
“Adam wanted to get there and get the story from the horse’s mouth and find out. He wasn’t going to talk about it or write about or post about it before he knew exactly that that was the case and wanted to get the surrounding details, and who’s better than the horse’s mouth.
“He saw Collin Morikawa on the first tee of the Pro-Am and said, ‘look can you confirm that you fired your caddie’? And Collin said, ‘yeah, that’s true, I did’. So it’s confirmed and he goes, ‘ok, care to expound on it and give us some further details’? And Collin said, ‘no, I don’t want to talk right now, but I’ll talk after the round’. So Adam followed Morikawa’s group for three holes wondering if Collin would reconsider and help him connect some dots, it would take a minute, 90 seconds, that’s all it would take to answer the questions.
“But when Collin wasn’t doing that, Adam went in and wrote the story and confirmed that Collin Morikawa had fired his caddie, and said that Collin wasn’t going to talk at the time, but was going to talk after the round, which is exactly what happened. And Collin, when he was out on the golf course, as players are able to do, they pull their phones out and they see the story. And Collin thought that it made him once again look like he was unwilling to talk to the media.
“So when he got in, he was livid and took issue with Adam in the media center and called him out,“ Chamblee continued. “And Adam said, ‘all I was doing was, I reported exactly what happened, exactly what happened – you said you fired your caddy, you confirmed it, but that you wouldn’t talk more until after the round, and that’s what I wrote’. And Collin said, ‘yeah, well, it makes it look like I wouldn’t talk again’, et cetera, et cetera.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
“And so again, I just think this is another example of the golfers confusing journalists with influencers. A journalist’s job is to be out there and to cover the sport, cover the game and the players and do it with as much accuracy and integrity and validity and veracity that they can muster.
“An influencer’s job is in promoting the players to also promote themselves in hopes of gaining followers. These are not the same thing. Influencers are not journalists, but influencers are, pat you on the back, let’s have some fun.
“I understand Collin and all those players, that’s their job, that’s their office. And I understand if Collin’s like, you know what, I don’t want to talk now, but I’ll catch you after the round. That’s totally understandable. That’s not an issue. I’m not upset at that. I just, I don’t understand why Collin then got upset.
“I think Collin wanted Adam to just sit on the story for three hours. And it’s like, again, that’s not the way journalism works. It’s like your job is to get it out and it to be accurate and true and fair, but it helps to get it out first. Because breaking news does matter.”
Collin Morikawa is doing himself no favours right now
Morikawa made things needlessly difficult for himself in Detroit last week.
Schupak painted the 28-year-old in a very good light with his story, if anything.
The journalist made it sound like Morikawa wanted to invest his time into playing with his amateur partners in the Pro-Am, rather than speak to the press.
However, the two-time major winner took that completely the wrong way.
He is struggling with his game right now, and that seems to be manifesting into a real attitude problem with the media.
Morikawa needs to go back to basics and remember what made him such a good player in the first place. He’s getting far too wrapped up in issues off the golf course right now, and that is clearly not helping him one little bit.
