PGA Tour launch a new attack on Saudi rebels, calling out Mickelson and Co’s restraining order fight
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The PGA Tour has not held back in its response to the lawsuit filed against the organization by LIV Golf rebels as it accused the Saudi-backed breakaway of being ‘prepared to lose billions of dollars to sportswash’.
Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau led a group of 11 LIV Golf defectors who filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour last week.
The players were suspended by the PGA Tour for joining the controversial LIV Golf series and the 11 have claimed they are being punished for playing in the breakaway’s tournaments.
Three suspended players, Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford, are seeking a temporary restraining order so that they can play in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, beginning this week with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Tour has now hit back with attorneys claiming that LIV Golf is not competing fairly but rather using the sport to ‘sportswash’ the Saudi Arabian government’s ‘deplorable’ human rights record.
‘LIV is not a rational economic actor, competing fairly to start a golf tour,’ the Tour’s attorneys wrote.
Bryson DeChambeau (left) and Phil Mickelson (right) are among 11 players to sue the PGA Tour
Talor Gooch – pictured with Donald Trump at the LIV Golf event in Bedminster -is one of three players seeking a temporary restraining order so that they can play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs
‘It is prepared to lose billions of dollars to leverage Plaintiffs and the sport of golf to ‘sportswash’ the Saudi government’s deplorable reputation for human rights abuses.
‘If Plaintiffs are allowed to breach their TOUR contracts without consequence, the entire mutually beneficial structure of the TOUR, an arrangement that has grown the sport and promoted the interests of golfers going back to Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, would collapse.’
In a motion filed Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the PGA Tour’s attorneys branded the injunction request as ‘legally baseless’.
The PGA Tour, pictured commissioner Jay Monahan, branded the request as ‘legally baseless’
‘Despite knowing full well that they would breach TOUR Regulations and be suspended for doing so, Plaintiffs have joined competing golf league LIV Golf, which has paid them tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money supplied by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to procure their breaches,’ the motion said.
‘[Temporary restraining order] Plaintiffs now run into Court seeking a mandatory injunction to force their way into the TOUR’s season-ending FedExCup Playoffs, an action that would harm all TOUR members that follow the rules. The antitrust laws do not allow Plaintiffs to have their cake and eat it too.’
The Saudi rebels’ bombshell lawsuit claimed their suspension from the Tour would cause their careers ‘irreparable harm’.
Gooch’s ‘4 Aces’ teammate Pat Perez (right) was also listed among the 11 lawsuit players
The lawsuit read: ‘As part of its carefully orchestrated plan to defeat competition, the Tour has threatened lifetime bans on players who play in even a single LIV Golf event.
‘It has backed up these threats by imposing unprecedented suspensions on players (including the Plaintiffs) that threaten irreparable harm to the players and their ability to pursue their profession.’
However, the Tour insisted the players face no threat and that the trio were aware of the consequences they would face when they accepted millions to join LIV golf.
The motion also noted that Gooch, Jones and Swafford had almost two months to seek relief from the court and the PGA Tour accused them of now ‘fabricating an emergency’ to gain the restraining order.
The motion noted Gooch, Jones and Swafford (above) had almost two months to seek relief
‘It doesn’t,’ the Tour’s attorneys wrote regarding the players’ claim the suspension causes them harm.
‘Their ineligibility for TOUR events was foreseeable when they accepted millions from LIV to breach their agreements with the TOUR, and they knew for a fact that they were suspended on June 9. The harm they now allege from their suspensions is 100 percent economic and capable of redress with money damages.
‘Indeed, several other LIV players including four other Plaintiffs in this case recognize there is no emergency or irreparable harm; they too have qualified to play in the FedExCup but have not asked the Court for the extraordinary relief sought through this motion.
‘The Court should use its equitable powers to redress real emergencies, not engineered ones by parties who knowingly accepted multi-million-dollar payouts to place themselves in the situation they are in.’
The hearing is scheduled for 1pm PST and Gooch, Swafford and Jones are expected to attend the court in person.
Jones (above) will be relying on Tuesday’s hearing in San Jose, to compete next week
All three had finished in the top 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings – Gooch is 20th, Jones is 65th and Swafford is 67th – which meant they were eligible to compete at TPC Southwind this week.
However, the PGA Tour will now reportedly allow players from outside the top 125 in the rankings to compete and take the place of those associated with LIV Golf.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan previously responded to the lawsuit with a terse memo to his players in which he referred to ’11 of your former colleagues’ suing the tour and continued to refer to LIV Golf as the ‘Saudi Golf League.’
Patrick Cantlay celebrates winning the FedEx Cup at the TOUR Championship last year
Monahan said players knew the consequences of signing up for the rival league.
‘We have been preparing to protect our membership and contest this latest attempt to disrupt our tour, and you should be confident in the legal merits of our position,’ Monahan wrote.
‘Fundamentally, these suspended players – who are now Saudi Golf League employees – have walked away from the tour and now want back in,’ he wrote.
‘It’s an attempt to use the tour platform to promote themselves and to freeride on your benefits and efforts.’