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PGA Tour countersues LIV Golf, alleging interference with tour golfers’ contracts

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The PGA Tour countersued LIV Golf late Wednesday night in the latest legal volley between the two organizations as they struggle over golf’s future.

The PGA Tour accused the Saudi-backed LIV Golf of tortiously interfering with the tour’s contracts with golfers who defected to the upstart rival. LIV, and three golfers, are suing the PGA Tour for antitrust violations. In a 72-page filing Wednesday, the PGA denied that claim and then added its countersuit charges.

“Indeed, a key component of LIV’s strategy has been to intentionally induce TOUR members to breach their TOUR agreements and play in LIV events while seeking to maintain their TOUR memberships and play in marquee TOUR events like The Players Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs, so LIV can free ride off the TOUR and its platform,” the PGA Tour complaint reads. “LIV has openly sought to damage the TOUR’s business relationships with its members by inducing them to breach their contractual requirements, even going so far as to pay members’ legal fees to make breaching their contracts with TOUR more enticing.”

The PGA Tour’s complaint essentially charges that if either body is guilty of anticompetitive behavior it is LIV because its regulations are far more restrictive to the players than the PGA Tour’s.

“LIV has signed golfers to multi-year contracts containing obligations that are far more restrictive than anything in the Regulations, including a prohibition on participation in conflicting events that, unlike the TOUR’s conflicting event rules, does not allow for any request for release,” the PGA Tour’s complaint reads.

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