PGA Tour heads to court to keep LIV players out of FedEx Cup

The PGA Tour has asked a federal judge in San Francisco to deny the appeal of three suspended players who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf and now want to compete in the tour’s lucrative postseason, arguing the players knew the consequences two months ago.

Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford filed a temporary restraining order last week, separate from 10 players who filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, two days before the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events in the chase for the $18m prize.

The FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee, has a $15m purse, and the top 70 players advance to the second postseason event in Wilmington, Delaware.

Gooch, Jones, and Swafford are among nine players who have joined LIV Golf and finished the regular season among the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings. The other six who joined LIV Golf are not asking to play in the tour’s postseason.

In a court filing on Monday to oppose the temporary restraining order, the tour argued antitrust laws do not allow the three players “to have their cake and eat it, too.”

“Despite knowing full well that they would breach TOUR Regulations and be suspended for doing so, Plaintiffs have joined competing golf league LIV Golf, which has paid them tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money supplied by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund,” the tour said in its opposing motion.

The three players were not among the highest-sought players for Greg Norman’s rival league, though they were among the initial group of players who signed with LIV Golf. Gooch was the only one among the top 50 in the world, mainly from his only PGA Tour win last November.

“Plaintiffs have waited nearly two