If any proof is needed of how worrisome the mood has become in the battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf — or, more precisely, between Tour players and LIV’s poor plaintiffs — —Then consider the example of Davis Love III. Throughout his nearly 40-year career, Love has been the epitome of a refined professional golfer, always courteous to colleagues, and so reserved that his idea of a revolutionary act was to dress in non-khaki trousers.
Suddenly, the corporate ideal of business became Davis rougeOcasio-Cortez of the Ralph Lauren pinstripes, encouraged boycott from a constituency usually only concerned with slow games and high taxes, while insisting that no LIV player would leave his Presidents Cup team room Doors go dark, even after being declared eligible for court.
He wasn’t even the angriest person out there.
Finally, we’ve reached the inevitable point where the PGA Tour’s carefully constructed tapestry of collaborations falls apart at the seams. The image is always less organic than enforced, and players who openly speak ill of their peers are subject to disciplinary action. The aim is to create a commercially attractive golf impression that is free of jerks, cheaters, scorched, wife beaters and other outlaws.
litigation:Texting surface between Sergio Garcia and Greg Norman
reaction:PGA Tour players unhappy with LIV golfer’s lawsuit
That appearance persisted during the early defections to LIV, as Tour loyalists insisted they would remain friends with the dead. But after LIV players filed legal documents Wednesday — one an injunction request to force three of them into the PGA Tour’s FedExCup playoffs and another an antitrust statement challenging the PGA Tour’s so-called monopoly — The rift is widening rapidly.
“Their vision is to pick the events they want to play on the PGA Tour. Obviously, it’s going to be a higher world ranking event and a bigger prize money,” said a visibly annoyed Billy Horscher. “It’s frustrating. They’ve decided to leave and they should follow their employers. I know some people are angrier and more frustrated than I am.”
“The things they go there and do are bad for our tour. You can’t have the best of both worlds,” Will Zalatoris said. “A lot of people would be very upset if they were allowed to do both.”
“Please stay away from your fantasy land,” Joel Daman tweeted.
It’s no surprise that he’s getting more cranky. It’s hard to be friends with a roommate who moved to a fancy new mansion but returned to steal and then burn down the house you still live in.
Like most lawsuits, LIV’s antitrust lawsuit has its colorful array of allegations, conjectures, and rumors, most of which tend to disappear or adjust when it’s finally sworn in. While it was a feast for clickbait editors, its 100-plus pages of sour aftertaste suggested that the plaintiffs did not intend to coexist with the system, but to dismantle it and reshape the Golf to its benefit.
LIV’s compilation of conspiracy theories accuses everyone from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to Augusta National President Frederic and claims golf powers have made concerted efforts to erect unfair barriers to stop rival league standings Stand firm. It’s a bold claim for a company that has already spent more than $1 billion building itself, and its CEO has billions left at his disposal.
For obvious reasons, LIV’s lawyers (whose invoices are bound for Riyadh) ignore the possibility that a reasonable person might conclude — independent of each other and with no anti-competitive motives — to allow a regime that beheads its critics to have an elite Golf is a bad idea and sees human rights as an inconvenience.
The PGA Tour will counter that there’s a difference between hurting a potential competitor and not helping that competitor, and refusing to let LIV use its more prominent platform, tournaments and assets to build a business makes sense. For the 11 plaintiffs, the discovery process alone will be long and revealing, with potentially unpleasant details about the Tour’s secretive handling of discipline and LIV’s sordid finances. None of this can ease the relationship between opposing players facing a court-ordered cross-path on the tee.
The Northern District of California is likely to grant the injunctions sought by Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones, which would allow them to compete in the FedEx Cup playoffs. Judges have broad discretion in deciding issues of fairness rather than law, and often consider allowing athletes to compete while related arguments are litigated. Injunctions will be decided within days and antitrust claims within years. Among the Tour players, both were interpreted as acts of provocation by those who took Saudi cash but now also want to pocket it.
The final outcome of the PGA Tour versus LIV Golf is clearly still unclear, despite confident statements from social media constitutional scholars, epidemiologists and antitrust litigators.
The only certainty is that attorneys will earn more than many members of any one tour. This means little to LIV’s plaintiffs, who are funded by foreign governments and have no personal gain in the game, saving their already squandered reputation. For the other side who will ultimately bear the cost of the PGA Tour’s defense of itself, the sentiment is more personal through the courts.
Greg Norman has vowed to reinvent golf. He’s already done that in the dressing room, though sadly he’s reinvented everything in his resentful, discordant image. Life on the PGA Tour will never be the same again, even for the few remaining players who still fantasize about being in the pre-aggressive Davis Love III model.
Follow Golfweek columnist Eamon Lynch on Twitter @eamonlynch.
