Phil Mickelson, 10 others from LIV Golf file antitrust lawsuit against PGA Tour
Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and nine other LIV Golf players filed an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against the PGA Tour for suspending them from playing on the tour as long as they were a part of the new Saudi-backed tour.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
If the gloves weren’t off already in the public spat between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the brawl is now in full force.
Three of the LIV golfers named in the lawsuit — 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, which begin next week with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
All three would have qualified for the tour’s postseason had they not been suspended.
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The other golfers involved in the suit are Abraham Ancer, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Ian Poulter and Peter Uihlein.
Other LIV Golf members Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na are not part of the suit because they resigned their PGA Tour memberships when they joined LIV.
In June, as soon as the first LIV Golf event teed off outside London, the PGA Tour announced it had suspended the PGA Tour members who had joined LIV.
The lawsuit also revealed that Mickelson was suspended by the PGA Tour in March, before he signed on with LIV Golf. An antitrust claim made by Mickelson and other LIV Golf members against the tour disclosed that Mickelson received that disciplinary action for attempting to recruit members to the new circuit.
Mickelson, in what he said was a private conversation with an author who was writing a book about him, stated that he was using the Saudi tour as leverage against the PGA Tour in his (and other players’) effort to raise purses and elevate players’ experience on the tour.
After those comments were published, Mickelson announced in a statement that said he was taking a personal leave of absence from the game.
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According to complaint in the lawsuit: “On March 22, 2022, the Commissioner (PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan) suspended Plaintiff Mickelson (with the opportunity to apply for reinstatement in May of 2022) for, among other alleged reasons, ‘attempting to recruit players to join [LIV Golf].’
“Following an appeal, the appeals committee (a three-person committee comprised of members of the Tour Policy Board) affirmed the Commissioner’s two-month suspension. On June 20, 2022, Mr. Mickelson applied for reinstatement from the two-month suspension. The Tour denied his request, stating that Plaintiff Mickelson violated Tour regulations by participating in the LIV Golf London Invitational. In addition to denying his request for reinstatement, the Tour extended Plaintiff Mickelson’s suspension, forbidding him from seeking reinstatement to play professional golf with the Tour until March 31, 2023.”
The tour then extended the suspension for Mickelson’s participation in the second LIV Golf event, outside Portland, Ore., “deferring even the mere opportunity to apply for reinstatement until after March 31, 2024.”
“Mr. Mickelson’s unlawful two-year suspension from the PGA Tour has caused him irreparable professional harm, as well as financial, and commercial harm,” the lawsuit read. “The Tour’s unlawful suspensions are denying Mr. Mickelson the right he has earned to play in events on the Tour, to earn compensation playing on the Tour, and to have the opportunities that come with such play. The Tour’s suspension has denied Mr. Mickelson the right to the platform and the public exposure provided by playing on the Tour.”
The PGA Tour’s contention regarding the players who’ve played LIV events, from a memo released by Monahan, is that they “did not receive the necessary conflicting event and media rights releases — or did not apply for releases at all — and their participation in the Saudi Golf League/LIV Golf event is in violation of our Tournament regulations.’’
Two attorneys with whom The Post spoke in June when Monahan announced the suspensions, believed the suspensions would be short-lived — particularly if the players took legal action against the PGA Tour.
“I don’t think the PGA Tour has a leg to stand on,’’ John Lauro, a New York and Florida-based attorney, said.
“The PGA Tour is basically in an untenable position,’’ Jonathan Pollard, an attorney based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said.
Both Lauro, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, and Pollard agreed that the PGA Tour’s biggest problem if players opt to sue is that it cannot hold the players back for reasons of “confidential information or trade secrets, protectable customer relationships or an extraordinary investment in the employee’s education or training.’’
“Those are the three biggest and most commonly litigated legitimate-business interests upon which a court could enforce a noncompete agreement,’’ Pollard said. “And, if you look at this situation with the PGA Tour, none of those interests is even remotely present.’’
Pollard added that the PGA Tour “is not going to be able to say, ‘We need to do this [suspend players] to protect trade secrets, we need to do this to protect customer information, we need to do this to protect our investment in these players.’ ’’
Monahan responded to the lawsuit by sending a memo to its PGA Tour members on Wednesday that read, in part:
“As part of (the) suit, Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford are seeking a temporary restraining order to play in the FedExCup Playoffs despite knowing they would be ineligible for tournament play as early as June, and of course a year’s worth of communication in advance of their decision to join the Saudi Golf 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. Fundamentally these suspended players — who are now Saudi Golf League employees — have walked away from the TOUR and now want back in. With the Saudi Golf League on hiatus, they’re trying to use lawyers to force their way into competition alongside our members in good standing.
“It’s an attempt to use the TOUR platform to promote themselves and freeride on your benefits and efforts. Let me be clear: we will continue to defend the members who abide by the regulations written by and for the players.’’
Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Members of the royal family and Saudi government have been accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
Matthew Wolff was unable to give a definitive answer to whether or not he’d compete in the playoffs when asked this past weekend, but said he’d “absolutely” consider it.