The PGA Tour countersued LIV Golf late Wednesday night in the latest legal volley between the two organizations as they struggle over golf’s future.
The PGA Tour accused the Saudi-backed LIV Golf of tortiously interfering with the tour’s contracts with golfers who defected to the upstart rival. LIV, and three golfers, are suing the PGA Tour for antitrust violations. In a 72-page filing Wednesday, the PGA denied that claim and then added its countersuit charges.
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“Indeed, a key component of LIV’s strategy has been to intentionally induce TOUR members to breach their TOUR agreements and play in LIV events while seeking to maintain their TOUR memberships and play in marquee TOUR events like The Players Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, so LIV can free ride off the TOUR and its platform,” the PGA Tour complaint reads. “LIV has openly sought to damage the TOUR’s business relationships with its members by inducing them to breach their contractual requirements, even going so far as to pay members’ legal fees to make breaching their contracts with TOUR more enticing.”
The PGA Tour’s complaint essentially charges that if either body is guilty of anticompetitive behavior it is LIV because its regulations are far more restrictive to the players than the PGA Tour’s.
“LIV has signed golfers to multi-year contracts containing obligations that are far more restrictive than anything in the Regulations, including a prohibition on participation in conflicting events that, unlike the TOUR’s conflicting event rules, does not allow for any request for release,” the PGA Tour’s complaint reads.
Other examples of restrictions cited include contracts that require players to play every LIV event, that players must use their social media platforms to promote LIV, that media interactions have to be approved by LIV, and that players if asked must introduce LIV to their own sponsors.
The PGA Tour also took aim at LIV for requiring some of the golfers to recruit PGA Tour members. “(Phil) Mickelson and (Bryson) DeChambeau also…actively recruited other TOUR members to join LIV and breach their agreements with the TOUR,” the complaint reads.
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LIV’s suit began as a legal action taken by the players, not the upstart men’s professional golf tour financed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and fronted by Greg Norman.
The original antitrust suit was filed by Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, Matt Jones, Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Ian Poulter, Pat Perez, Jason Kokrak and Peter Uihlein on Aug. 3. As part of the suit, a temporary restraining order was sought by Gooch, Swafford and Jones to compete in the FedExCup Playoffs.
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The PGA Tour’s legal strategy versus LIV was first seen in an Aug. 8 response to the TRO. The tour’s counter stated that suspended tour members who defected to LIV but still sought to compete in the FedEx Cup Playoffs had “willfully breached their contracts with the tour” and were “fabricating an emergency” in an attempt to play.
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On Aug. 9, the tour notched its first victory in what may be a long battle. A U.S. federal judge denied the TRO request, formally barring LIV players from the PGA Tour playoffs.
In recent weeks, Ancer, Kokrak, Ortiz and Perez all withdrew from the original antitrust case. They were joined Tuesday by Mickelson, Gooch, Poulter and Swafford.
As those players pulled out, though, LIV formally joined the legal action against the tour in an amended complaint filed on Aug. 27. As of Thursday, DeChambeau, Jones and Uihlein are the lone players remaining as plaintiffs, along with LIV.
(Photo of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan: Peter Casey / USA Today)