Federal judge rejects bid by three LIV golfers to compete in FedEx Cup playoffs

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A federal judge on Tuesday denied a temporary restraining order to three golfers who were seeking to participate in the FedEx Cup Playoffs after leaving the PGA Tour for the upstart LIV Golf Invitational Series.

The players, Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford, were seeking relief to participate in the first leg of the playoffs, at this week's FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind.

The top 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings are eligible to compete in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Gooch is 20th in the standings, Jones is 65th and Swafford is 67th. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan suspended the players after they appeared in LIV Golf tournaments without conflicting-event releases from the Tour.

U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman, of the Northern District of California, ruled that the LIV players had not made their case of irreparable harm and agreed with the Tour's position that the players' argument for emergency relief was of «their own making.»

«It appears to the court that the LIV contracts, negotiated by the players and consummated between the parties, were based upon the players' calculation of what they would be leaving behind and the amount the players would need to monetize to compensate for those losses,» Freeman said in her ruling. «I do agree with the defendants [the PGA Tour] that those losses were well known to the players at the time and clearly monetized.»

Freeman noted that LIV Golf affords the suspended players an opportunity to play elite golf in the United States with guaranteed pay. «And, in fact, the evidence shows that it seems almost without a doubt that they will be earning more than they have made and could reasonably have expected to make in a