The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Tour: LIV players knew consequences
The PGA Tour asked a federal judge in San Francisco to deny the appeal of three suspended players who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf and now want to compete in the tour’s lucrative postseason, arguing the players knew the consequences two months ago.
Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford are seeking a temporary restraining order. They are among 10 players who filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour last week.
The hearing is scheduled for 4 p.m. EDT on Aug. 9 in San Jose, California, two days before the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events in the chase for the $18 million top prize.
The FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, has a $15 million purse, and the top 70 players advance to the second postseason event in Wilmington, Delaware.
Gooch (No. 20), Jones (No. 65) and Swafford (No. 67) are among nine players who have joined LIV Golf and finished the regular season among the top 125
in the FedEx Cup standings. The other six who joined LIV Golf are not asking to play in the tour’s postseason.
In a court filing Aug. 8 to oppose the temporary restraining order, the tour argued antitrust laws do not allow the three players “to have their cake and eat it, too.”
Gooch, Swafford and Jones used the same phrase in separate, legal-heavy letters
to tour officials last month in protesting their suspensions and claiming the regulations were onerous and kept them from playing elsewhere.
“I am a free agent and independent contractor. The Tour cannot have its cake and eat it too by trying to control me as one might an employee, while not providing me the rights and benefits an employee would receive,”
each letter said.
The PGA Tour argued in its opposing motion, “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.”