Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and nine other players who defected to Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour on Wednesday, the first step in a legal battle that could define the boundaries of where players compete be able.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, alleges that the PGA Tour used its monopoly power to stifle competition and wrongly suspended players.
A separate application has been filed asking for an injunction to allow Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford to play in the playoffs of the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour postseason, which begins next week.
The lawsuit also found that PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan suspended Mickelson for two months in March for his role in recruiting players for LIV Golf. It said Mickelson’s request for reinstatement in June was denied because he competed in one LIV golf event and was suspended until March 2024 for participating in another.
Monahan responded to the lawsuit with a terse memo to his players, citing “11 of your former colleagues” who are suing the tour and continuing to refer to LIV Golf as the “Saudi Golf League.”
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is the main source of the money, which pays exorbitant signing bonuses and allocates $25 million to 48-man fields. Several players are in their 40s and no longer rank in the top 50 in the world.
Monahan said the players knew the consequences of signing up for the opposing league.
“We have prepared to protect our membership and contest this recent attempt to disrupt our tour and you should rest assured of the legal merits of our position,” Monahan wrote.
“Basically these suspended players – who are now employees of the Saudi Golf League – have left the tour and are now looking to get back in,” he wrote. “It’s an attempt to use the tour platform to promote yourself and capitalize on your perks and efforts.”
LIV Golf said in a statement: “Players rightfully brought this lawsuit to challenge the PGA’s anti-competitive rules and defend their rights as independent contractors to play where and when they choose. Despite the PGA Tour’s efforts to suppress competition, we think golfers should be allowed to play golf.”
CEO, Greg Norman, said LIV Golf is willing to provide financial support for any legal matter. Last month four European Tour players won a temporary stay from a British judge allowing them to play at the Scottish Open.
Mickelson reportedly signed a $200 million deal to join the Saudi Arabia-funded venture, with DeChambeau in the $150 million range. And those are just signing bonuses. Seventeen players have already won more than $1 million in three tournaments or fewer.
The PGA Tour denied players clearance from LIV events and suspended them for putting a ball in play. Some players, such as Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia, chose to resign from the PGA Tour.
At the heart of the lawsuit are allegations that the PGA Tour uses its power as the premier tour in golf to harass players and anyone else who might become involved with LIV Golf. It accused the tour of intimidating, among other things, a tent seller and a technology company that LIV Golf wanted to do business with to start its series.
It is also claimed the tour’s threats to ban players ultimately forced LIV Golf to pay more to sign bonuses to get the players they wanted and forced the opposing league to scale back their starting plans to just eight events in this one to change year. LIV Golf announced a 14-tournament schedule for next year.
“The Tour’s conduct has significantly reduced and disrupted promoter entry, which could seriously threaten the PGA Tour’s monopoly, which has been unchallenged for decades,” the lawsuit reads.
The Tour stands by its belief that it is a membership organization with regulations that players accept. These include a code of conduct and the requirement to play at least 15 tournaments per year to retain full membership.
Players are generally allowed to play three releases per year in order to participate in overseas events taking place in the same week as a PGA Tour tournament. The tour does not allow releases for conflicting events in North America.
Two LIV golf events were held in the US, first in Oregon last month and then at Trump National in New Jersey last week. Three more are planned this year for courses near Boston, Chicago and Miami.
Monahan has been emphatic in his comments on LIV Golf, referring in June to the tour’s inability to compete with “a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars to buy the game of golf.”
“We welcome good, healthy competition. The LIV Saudi Golf League is not,” he said. “It’s an irrational threat that doesn’t care about the ROI or the true growth of the game.”