LIV Golf’s request for communications from Augusta members, including Condoleezza Rice, is rejected

LIV Golf failed in its attempt to attract even more parties to its antitrust lawsuit and ongoing civil war with the PGA Tour after a federal judge denied its latest request.

The Saudi-funded spinoff had its request earlier this month to obtain third-party discovery of communications involving 10 members of Augusta National, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

LIV Golf had issued citations to five PGA Tour board members and Tim Finchem, the retired PGA Tour commissioner.

He wanted all communication between them and “any member of Augusta National” in connection with a new tour, but not limited to the Saudi-backed rival league that launched last year.

In a redacted filing last week, LIV Golf alleged that Rice and Arkansas bank executive Warren Stephens “apparently attempted to influence” the Justice Department not to investigate the PGA Tour.

LIV Golf also alleged that tour employees “apparently asked Stephens” to lobby Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, to lobby LIV.

In her ruling Monday, US Judge Susan van Keulen said LIV Golf’s request for 10 additional members of Augusta National and the Masters Committee “is too onerous for the named parties and out of proportion to the needs of the litigation.” .

Communication with the additional 10 members would have gone beyond what she described as ‘agreed goals’. There were four Augusta National employees, including President Fred Ridley, and seven members. Members include Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, which owns the Golf Channel.

LIV Golf’s lawyers argued in last week’s filing that part of the PGA Tour’s attempt to eliminate competition from the new tour was to threaten players, other tours, broadcasters, vendors and any other third parties if they worked with LIV Golf.

“Discovery has shown that the tour delivered these threats not only through its own executives and employees, but also by sending other influential people on its behalf,” LIV Golf’s lawyers wrote in the filing.

The judge said that any connection based on the documents cited by LIV Golf is “highly speculative.”

“The subpoenaed documents do not in any way implicate the subpoenaed parties,” he wrote in his order. ‘Nor do they reflect communications by or between the additional targets identified. In fact, for the most part, the identified targets appear simply as names on lists or in other oblique references made by others.’

Tour attorneys had previously argued that LIV Golf’s allegations that the Tour relied on Augusta National to prevent LIV Golf players from competing in the Masters were unsubstantiated because the Masters announced in December that all eligible players would be allowed to play.

The 16 LIV Golf players eligible for the Masters include Bryson DeChambeau, who remains one of three players still listed as a plaintiff in the antitrust lawsuit.