The first of what could be multiple legal challenges to the PGA Tour’s decision to suspend players for defying regulations and playing the LIV Golf circuit landed in a California court Wednesday.
In what was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, 11 players – including Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Talor Gooch – filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court-Northern District of California claiming the Tour has violated antitrust law.
“The Tour’s unlawful strategy has been both harmful to the players and successful in threatening LIV Golf’s otherwise-promising launch,” the 105-page lawsuit claimed. “The Tour flexed its incumbent monopolistic power, including by enforcing its unlawful player restrictions that deny players the ability to sell their services to others, imposing lengthy suspensions on players for merely exercising their right as independent contractors to play in a competing promoter’s events, and ramping up its threats targeting Plaintiffs and others.”
Three players in the lawsuit – Gooch (20th on the FedExCup points list), Matt Jones (62nd) and Hudson Swafford (63rd) – are also seeking a temporary restraining order that would allow them to participate in the FedExCup Playoffs, which begin next week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
Of the 11 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, those three players, along with Jason Kokrak (43rd), Abraham Ancer (84th) and Carlos Ortiz (104th), have currently earned enough points to be eligible for the PGA Tour’s postseason, which is on offer to the top 125 in FedExCup points. Ancer, Ortiz and Kokrak, however, are not among those requesting to compete in the playoffs.
“It’s an attempt to use the Tour platform to promote themselves and to freeride on your benefits and efforts. To allow reentry into our events compromises the Tour and the competition, to the detriment of our organization, our players, our partners and our fans,” read a memo from Tour commissioner Jay Monahan that was sent to players Wednesday. “The lawsuit they have filed somehow expects us to believe the opposite, which is why we intend to make our case clearly and vigorously.
“Let me be clear: we will continue to defend the members who abide by the regulations written by and for the players.”
PGA Tour players react to LIV Golf lawsuit
The Tour appeared to brace for an eventual challenge to the suspensions when it created an alternate points list last week that excluded the suspended players from playoff eligibility.
According to a memo sent to players from Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the circuit moved to ensure, “that suspended members do not negatively impact other players’ tournament eligibility, positioning on the priority rankings or eligibility to compete in the FedExCup playoffs.”
A spokesperson for LIV Golf responded to the lawsuit, saying, “The players are right to have brought this action to challenge the PGA’s anti-competitive rules and to vindicate their rights as independent contractors to play where and when they choose. Despite the PGA Tour’s effort to stifle competition, we think golfers should be allowed to play golf.”
Four players filed a similar challenge last month in the U.K. seeking an injunction to play the Scottish Open, which was co-sanctioned by both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. Those players won a stay in court and were allowed to play.
LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman had previously said that the upstart circuit would financially “backstop” players with representation if they sought to legally challenge the PGA Tour. LIV Golf is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
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