Saudi Tour Golfers Sue PGA Tour Seeking Right to Play in FedExCup Competition Run by PGA Tour
Saudi Tour Employees Seek Benefits of PGA Tour After Abandoning it.
The Saudi Tour golfers, the employees of the Saudis, who receive guaranteed minimum payments of at least $100,000 even if they are at the bottom of an LIV event and $4,000,000 if they win, all provided by MBS through their Sovereign Wealth Fund, have now sued the PGA Tour seeking the right to play in PGA Tour events including the FedEx Cup competitions. This is like the employee who quits his job for better pay then telling his old boss that he still expects medical coverage and other benefits from his old employer. Where did the LIV Golf players find attorneys to make these outlandish arguments? I know. They just got their Saudi money paid by their performance at Trump’s Bedminster golf course, so they tangled large up-front payments to their lawyers to make any argument to continue getting PGA Tour benefits while simultaneously undermining the PGA Tour so that the Saudis and MBS can take over or kill an American institution.
Who are these Saudi Golf employees suing their old boss: Abraham Ancer, Bryson DeChambeau, Taylor Gooch, Matt Jones, Jason Kokrak, Phil Mikelson, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Ian Poulter, Hudson Swafford, and Peter Uihlein. Gooch, Jones and Swafford are seeking a Temporary Restraining Order allowing them to play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs even though they were told in June that they would not be eligible for PGA Tour events if they became employees of Saudi Golf. So, they left the PGA Tour knowing the consequences.
Jay Monahan, the Commissioner of the PGA Tour, sent a letter to all current PGA Tour members, dated August 3, 2022, advising the players of the litigation against the
PGA Tour and the relief sought by the Saudi golfer players: PGA Tour benefits though they suspended their membership in the PGA Tour. The Commissioner promised a vigorous defense of the Saudi golfer litigation.
Like the rest of golf fans, I have not seen the contracts signed by the LIV golfers nor have I seen the bylaws and regulations governing the PGA Tour, but as an attorney for 51 years, it does not sound to me that the LIV golfers have much of a case. Unless someone produces a document giving support to the LIV golfers argument that they get to play at PGA Tour events though they resigned from the Tour, I would predict a PGA Tour victory in court.
But I make that prediction without seeing the Saudi players’ complaint, and they may have asserted some legal principle or facts of which I am unaware.
The PGA Tour is presenting the Wyndham Championship at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, NC, the site of early civil rights lunch counter sit-ins back in the 1960s, with this tournament having a purse of $7,300,000. But the LIV has nothing scheduled until September, so no paychecks for the Saudi golfer employees until then.
But the Saudi golfers have their eye on the real target: the FedEx St. Jude Championship at the TPC Southwind course in Memphis, TN, held on August 11-14, with a purse of $15,000,000. So, you see, these Saudi Tour golfers learned from the FBIs Deep Throat in Watergate who famously said: “Follow the money.”
My summary of the Saudi golfers’ position: they hit a slice and then a hook and now find themselves deep in a 10-foot high sand trap, and near the wall of the trap, with 175 yards to the green. I predict they will not find the green on this one in regulation or otherwise.