LIV golfers’ different attitudes towards legal action offers insight into motives

It would be unwise to place blind faith in the comments of a judge during a commercial dispute. In the case of LIV Golf and associated chaos, a sporting resolution chamber in the UK placed a stay on suspensions of DP World, formerly European, Tour golfers long before this week’s dramatic events in a courtroom in California. Interpretations of the law, however, are rarely an exact science.

In contrast to the UK, Judge Beth Labson Freeman determined the PGA Tour was well within its rights to exclude Matt Jones, Talor Gooch and Hudson Swafford from a playoff berth they had earned via on-course pursuits because it was undermined by an off-course swag grab. “If LIV Golf is elite golf’s future, what do the players care about the dust-collecting trophies of a bygone era?” asked Freeman in her written reasoning. It felt a valid point.

In an open letter to Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour’s commissioner, the LIV chief, Greg Norman, once stated: “You can’t ban players from playing golf.” Norman’s sentiment was equally clear during correspondence with Sergio García. “They cannot ban you for one day let alone life,” said Norman. “It is a shallow threat.” The entry list for this week’s St Jude in Memphis says otherwise. “I said to some of the guys personally, I think they’ve been brainwashed by the way they feel so adamant that they’re going to be back out on the PGA Tour,” said Billy Horschel, the world No 15. In court, Judge Freeman had stated: “These LIV contracts lock up players up in a way the PGA Tour never imagined. They are so restrictive.” So much for Norman’s insistence of bringing “free agency”.

No sooner had the LIV trio been denied a tee time in Tennessee than Rory McIlroy touched on an intriguing aspect of the ongoing civil