Your next NBC lead analyst tryout? Brandel Chamblee

The NBC Golf tryout cycle rolls on into the early portion of the 2024 PGA Tour season, which suggests a brand new voice is getting into the lead analyst chair for this weekend’s protection of the American Express. His title?

Brandel Chamblee.

On Wednesday afternoon, the community confirmed that Chamblee would make his long-awaited debut within the lead chair in Palm Springs, giving the tenured NBC/Golf Channel voice the chance to make his pitch for the lead analyst place vacated by Paul Azinger late final yr.

NBC has been present process tryouts for the lead analyst function since Azinger’s departure in December, an uncommon effort that can see a sequence of voices — together with some who should not NBC workers — take the reins for per week or two at first of this NBC season whereas a number of community executives make a ultimate willpower on who needs to be within the function full time. Chamblee was an early title rumored for the Azinger function after the community determined to not lengthen Azinger’s contract on the finish of the 2023 season.

“I’m not sure which way NBC is leaning in that regard,” Chamblee instructed GOLF in December. “But they have asked me to call some live golf and I’m happy to go wherever they want me.”

Chamblee is the third title to check out for the lead analyst function, and he’s unlikely to be the final. Chamblee’s Live From sparring associate (and good buddy) Paul McGinley began the method in December on the Hero World Challenge. He was adopted at first of the brand new yr by PGA Tour professional Kevin Kisner, whose debut on the Sentry earned rave evaluations. Other names who’ve been tied to the community embody Justin Leonard and David Duval.

While he has change into a polarizing determine within the golf world in the previous couple of years because of his unapologetic criticisms of LIV Golf and the Saudi authorities, Chamblee stays a revered determine inside NBC for his outstanding oratory items and a spotlight to element. While these items have at occasions gotten him into scorching water with the golf viewers, there’s little questioning that he is likely one of the most proficient pure golf analysts at NBC in his major function on Golf Channel’s suite of programming.

His theoretical hiring would characterize a notable shift for golf’s greatest broadcast networks with the lead analyst function. The function has historically solely been crammed by main champions — the considering being that solely those that have skilled the largest moments within the sport are apt to elucidate to viewers what they imply. This method has fueled some hypothesis that prior main winners like Duval and Geoff Ogilvy may very well be given preferential remedy within the tryout course of.

The fact, although, is that sports activities tv has been transferring in a unique path for a while now. Many of the preferred analysts and speaking heads are identified extra for his or her tv careers than they’re for his or her enjoying acumen — and the talents required to succeed in that degree of fame inside the sports-watching neighborhood are tied extra to rules of leisure than depth of expertise. In different phrases, whereas there’s definitely nonetheless a premium on attention-grabbing, incisive evaluation, the credentials of the particular person delivering that evaluation appear to matter lower than ever. (Take former Colts punter Pat McAfee’s success on YouTube, for instance, which led to a reported $75 million licensing deal from ESPN. Or Charles Barkley’s success as each a basketball analyst, a sport by which he’s a hall-of-fame participant, and golf provocateur, a sport by which he’s decidedly not.)

In some ways, Chamblee matches the fashionable mould: a educated tv voice with an intuition for leisure and a willingness to go towards the grain. As NBC makes an attempt to redirect the trail ahead for a golf broadcast that has gone stale in recent times, including Brandel’s voice would give the community a particular high quality to its protection that it lacked within the later days of Azinger’s tenure.

Of course, all of that is still hypothesis for right now. The large information, the headline information, is that that is solely a tryout — how the viewers and the powers that be at NBC get pleasure from his efforts on the American Express will finally be the figuring out elements for his future within the lead analyst chair.

The excellent news for Brandel? About the least attention-grabbing a part of his debut will likely be his efficiency in entrance of the microphone this weekend. After all, NBC is aware of what it has within the former pro-turned-analyst, who has been a staple of the community’s golf protection for greater than twenty years.

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is a information and options editor at GOLF, writing tales for the web site and journal. He manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and makes use of his on-camera expertise throughout the model’s platforms. Prior to becoming a member of GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, throughout which period he was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, the place he’s from. He might be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.