“The harm is completely self-induced” Matt Jones caught in golf tempest as PGA Tour tries to prevent LIV trio from competing in the FedEx Cup opening
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The US PGA Tour launched a scathing attack on the tournament’s morals in a motion it submitted to a federal court on Monday, asking that three LIV Golf players including the Australian Matt Jones not be permitted to participate in this week’s FedEx Cup playoff opening.
The PGA said in US District Court for Northern California that LIV Golf players understood quitting the PGA for the Saudi-sponsored upstart series would have repercussions and that they cannot “have their cake and eat it too.”
A hearing about the Australian Matt Jones and the Americans Talor Gooch and Hudson Swafford’s request for a temporary restraining order to force them to be let to compete at this week’s St. Jude Championship in Memphis will take place on Tuesday in San Jose. The PGA Tour stated in its lawsuit that the players’ move was “legally baseless” and that they had “fabricated an ’emergency’ they now believe necessitates immediate action” by waiting two months after leaving to make the motion.
The PGA claimed that players were aware that their conduct would result in sanctions and pointed out that other LIV players who might have qualified for the playoffs based on finishing in the top 125 in the PGA season have chosen not to request such slots. The PGA filing stated that “the players’ purported harm is completely self-induced.” The three golfers were among 11 who last week filed an anti-trust complaint against the PGA Tour, the first court victory in a battle that could take years to be resolved over the future of golf’s top-tier competition.
LIV Golf is sports washing the game of golf says the PGA tour
The court was also informed that LIV Golf, the tournament’s financial supporters from “deplorable” Saudi Arabia, was “prepared to lose billions of dollars” for the sport. “Liv is not a rational economic actor, competing fairly to start a golf tour,” the court heard. “It’s prepared to lose billions of dollars to leverage plaintiffs and the sport of golf to ‘sports wash’ the Saudi government’s deplorable reputation for human rights abuses.”
LIV Golf attracted several of the sport’s top players away from the US PGA Tour by offering record $25 million prizes, which forced the PGA to significantly increase prize money for numerous events during the upcoming season. Among the players that have thrown their support behind LIV Golf are Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Ian Poulter, and Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Louis Oosthuizen, and Martin Kaymer.
The top 70 in points this week advance to next week’s BMW Championship, and the top 30 advances to the Tour Championship in Atlanta. The next LIV Golf competition won’t take place until after the PGA playoffs. Gooch, Jones, and Swafford finished 65th and 67th respectively in the FedEx Cup standings, although they have all been suspended since the start of their first LIV Golf competition.
Three of the 122 players that made the lineup in Memphis are no longer on the field because they withdrew. Tommy Fleetwood of England cited personal reasons, while American Daniel Berger has been sidelined since the US Open because of a back ailment, and American Lanto Griffin declared in July that his season was likely over following back surgery.
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