PGA Tour Accuses LIV Golf of Interfering With Its Contracts

The PGA Tour filed a countersuit in opposition to LIV Golf on Wednesday, the newest flip in a winding authorized battle between the tour and the Saudi-backed circuit that has drawn quite a few high gamers.

In its counterclaim, the PGA Tour, which LIV is suing for antitrust violations, stated the upstart sequence had “tortiously interfered” with the tour’s contracts with golfers who had left to hitch LIV. It added that LIV had “falsely knowledgeable” its gamers that they might break their contracts with the tour “for the advantage of LIV and to the detriment of all tour members.”

“Certainly, a key element of LIV’s technique has been to deliberately induce tour members to breach their tour agreements and play in LIV occasions whereas searching for to take care of their tour memberships and play in marquee tour occasions like The Gamers Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, so LIV can free trip off the tour and its platform,” the PGA Tour stated in its counterclaim.

The PGA Tour, which declined to touch upon Thursday, requested for a trial by jury, which was set for January 2024. The tour additionally seeks damages for any misplaced earnings, “damages to reputational and model hurt” and different authorized prices.

In an announcement on Thursday, LIV stated the PGA Tour “has made these counterclaims in a clear effort to divert consideration from their anti-competitive conduct, which LIV and the gamers element of their 104-page criticism.”

“We stay assured that the courts and the justice system will proper these wrongs,” the assertion stated.

The countersuit is the newest flip in an antagonistic battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, which has lured away quite a few gamers with staggering sums of cash. The swimsuit comes weeks after PGA Tour stars, together with Tiger Woods, met privately to debate methods to cope with LIV and after a federal decide dominated that the PGA Tour might bar LIV golfers from the FedEx Cup playoffs, which concluded on the finish of August.

In its countersuit, the PGA Tour claimed that whereas LIV Golf stated the tour’s guidelines violated antitrust legal guidelines, LIV had signed gamers to contracts with obligations “which can be way more restrictive” than what the tour’s guidelines dictated, “together with a prohibition on participation in conflicting occasions that, not like the tour’s conflicting occasion guidelines, doesn’t permit for any request for launch.

“But LIV instructed gamers that the tour’s conduct was anticompetitive and in violation of the rules in a calculated effort to persuade LIV gamers it might profit them to breach their agreements with the tour,” the counterclaim stated.

LIV Golf’s swimsuit was initially introduced by 11 former PGA Tour gamers, and LIV joined in late August. 4 of the gamers had already eliminated themselves from the swimsuit, and on Tuesday, 4 extra gamers — Phil Mickelson, Talor Gooch, Ian Poulter and Hudson Swafford — withdrew. The three particular person golfers who stay within the swimsuit are Bryson DeChambeau, Matt Jones and Peter Uihlein.

“I’m happy that the gamers on Tour are lastly being heard, revered, and valued and are benefiting from the adjustments lately carried out,” Mickelson stated in an announcement. “With LIV’s involvement in these points, the gamers’ rights will likely be protected, and I now not really feel it’s needed for me to be a part of the proceedings.”

On the Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland, on Wednesday, Rory McIlroy instructed reporters that the 2 sides should meet within the center.

“The sport of golf is ripping itself aside proper now, and that’s no good for anybody,” McIlroy stated. “It’s no good for the fellows on this aspect or the form of conventional system, and it’s no good for the fellows on the opposite aspect, both. It’s no good for anybody.”