Brandel Chamblee has always been a vocal supporter of the PGA Tour. Supporting the organization’s view that The Players Championship is the 5th major, the Golf Channel analyst indirectly insulted the four golf majors. Notably, there’s one man who couldn’t stand his comments, Phil Mickelson.

“I’ve won it. It’s not,” Lefty said in response to an X post shared by Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter.

The debate on the 5th major is hot. Talking about the same at the 2026 WM Phoenix Open, Chamblee said that he thinks of The Players Championship as above and better than all the majors.

“The Players, to me, stands alone and above the other four major championships as not just a major, it is in my estimation, the best major,” he said.

The Golf Channel analyst cited a deep field, no successful defenses except one, and TPC Sawgrass’s shot value as reasons to give The Players Championship major status. There’s no denying that the event has a deep field. In fact, the PGA Tour promotes it as a flagship event.

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An easy way to determine this is the OWGR’s field rating. The organization measured the 2025 Players Championship field at 462.13592 points. Compared with the 2025 Masters Tournament, the 2025 US Open field rating was 478.49811 points. What Chamblee said about no one defending the title except Scottie Scheffler is also true. He defended it in 2024 after Wyndham Clark’s crucial putt lipped out. But does all of that make it worth a major championship? According to Phil Mickelson, it does not.

The 45x PGA Tour winner had a blunt reply for him. He referenced his victory at The Players in 2001 and dismissed Chamblee’s assessment in just four words. The brevity made the message sharper and instantly viral.

Phil Mickelson has kind of come back on social media after a while just to hit back at Brandel Chamblee. It marked the 6x major champion’s first golf-related post in roughly a week. His previous update, shared on February 1, explained his absence from LIV Golf’s opening events because of a family health matter.

Notably, the LIV golfer is not playing the LIV Golf Riyadh and LIV Golf Adelaide events. Ollie Schniederjans, the 32-year-old American professional, is taking his place for these two events. However, Mickelson has said that he can’t wait to rejoin his teammates and play again.

This exchange between Brandel Chamblee and Phil Mickelson adds another chapter to the ongoing friction between the two.

Phil Mickelson and Brandel Chamblee’s past clashes

Chamblee is a vocal supporter of the PGA Tour, while Lefty’s allegiance lies with LIV Golf. Therefore, there has been constant disagreement between the two on various things. They have had public fueds for over a decade, and it only intensified after the 6x major champion joined the Saudi-backed league, which made the PGA Tour and its supporters hate him.

Their clashes often involve Twitter exchanges, critiques of majors play, and LIV vs. PGA Tour rhetoric.

In 2014, after Phil Mickelson criticized U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson in a team presser, Chamblee called it “as close to a one-man mutiny” he’s seen. The analyst later said Lefty lacked passion for the Ryder Cup and didn’t deserve captaincy. He also blasted the 45x PGA Tour winner for his 2017 U.S. Open rules violation, referring to it as “distracting”. He noted that it warranted disqualification.

In 2018, Mickelson fired back in a GOLF Magazine profile, saying they “don’t see eye to eye on anything” and accused Chamblee of a career “denigrating others.” The analyst then labeled him a “highly paid ventriloquist puppet” after his 2022 PGA Tour greed critique amid LIV recruitment.

Another spat occurred in May 2023, during which the two exchanged words via X. Phil Mickelson said that Chamblee ” is softer now than he was as a player.” In exchange, Chamblee referenced Lefty’s “scary motherf***ers” Saudi remark and blocked him.

Their long history of public clashes explains why even a short comment can reignite tension between Phil Mickelson and Brandel Chamblee, especially with their opposing loyalties. This backdrop made Lefty’s blunt response to the “fifth major” debate feel less like a throwaway remark and more like another pointed chapter in their rivalry.