By Larry Klayman, Esq.

 

Several weeks ago, I turned on NBC's Golf Channel to find PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan conducting a press conference where he trashed and threatened then PGA Tour players who would dare partake in the new upstart LIV Golf Tour, conceived of by golfing icon Greg Norman and financed by the Saudi Investment Fund. Although I am an accomplished golfer, until recently I never paid attention to "golf politics."

Branding PGA Tour players criminals if they would dare to enter into a contract with LIV Golf, and smearing them for engaging in "sportwashing" by accepting "blood money" from the Saudi Investment Fund, among other vicious attacks on their morals and character, Monahan could not contain his unhinged demeanor, all the while making not too veiled threats to kill the new tour an existential threat to the existence of the PGA Tour and it's affiliated tours such as the DP World Tour.

I, not just as a neutral observer, but also as someone who while at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan administration was a member on trial team that created competition in the telecommunications industry by breaking up the AT&T monopoly, was immediately offended and put off. Monahan's arrogance at this and at subsequent press conferences before a generally compromised golf media, I frankly found both disgusting and outrageous.

As a consumer of golf who attends professional tournaments, my initial reaction was that Monahan's threats to suspend, ban and punish in a plethora of other as yet unspecified ways any PGA Tour player who would play in a LIV tournament, coupled with similar obviously collusive threats by another arrogant leader, Keith Pelly of the DP World Tour — the PGA Tour's joint venture partner — would amount to per se alleged violations of the antitrust laws. These alleged violations would at a minimum amount to group boycotts, market division and other anticompetitive acts designed to eventually kill the LIV Golf Tour in it's infancy; that is to snuff out competition in what otherwise is a monopolistic golf tour industry. It appeared to me, just for starters, that this would create a pretext and an impetus for a consumer class action lawsuit against the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and their commissioners Monahan and Pelley.

I am a public interest advocate who believes in freedom of choice and could not simply let this slide. And, keeping LIV players from competing as independent contractors on multiple tours would deprive fans of their paid for benefit if not right to watch their favorite pros in action at PGA Tour and DP World Tour events, as well as LIV Golf Tour events.

As the founder of both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, and as an antitrust lawyer among other trades in the legal profession and elsewhere, I believe in competition. So, it was natural that I would feel duty bound to craft a consumer class action to be filed in my home state of Florida and county of Palm Beach, one of the hubs of the golf world and where many tour players live and practice, in addition to Texas, Arizona and California. The style of this case is Klayman v. PGA Tour, Civil Action No. 50-2022-CA-006587 (15th Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County).

Once filed, my case, in which I am the lead class action plaintiff, was largely ignored by the compromised golf media. Mainly, the independent Sinclair networks showcased it. And my lawsuit has never even been mentioned on NBC's Golf Channel, obviously because this network, having huge lucrative contracts to broadcast PGA Tour and DP World Tour events, is obviously fearful that a rival major network will sign a deal with the LIV Golf Tour to broadcast it's golfing tournaments and events. To be blunt, NBC's Golf Channel, which has from the rival tour's inception cruelly disparaged and defamed LIV and its players — with no regard even for the families of the LIV players -- is literally in bed with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and their anticompetitive allies, such as the Official Golf World Ranking, aka OWGR.

OWGR, an alleged co-conspirator to destroy LIV Golf along with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, and their "bought off golf media" such as NBC's Golf Channel, controls through its opaque, contrived and discriminatory world golf ranking point system whether professional golfers qualify for major and world tournaments. The OWGR board which determines this includes the PGA Tour's Jay Monahan and the DP World Tour's Keith Pelley and several other conflicted persons from rival leagues and venues who are out to destroy competition from LIV Golf. The machinations of the OWGR will be revealed more fully later, but for now suffice it to say that the organization is alleged to be a front group to restrain trade and competition and thus attempt to deny LIV players their right to participate in major championships, such as the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA events.

In the case of my client, Patrick Reed, who just recently brought a defamation suit against Brandel Chamblee and Golf Channel over it's pattern and practice of alleged defamatory smears, he has earned the right though victory after victory to participate in major championships, such as the Masters, which he won. See Reed v. Chamblee et. al Civil Action No. 4:22-cv-2778 (S.D. Tex.) Now, it would appear that this could be illegally denied to him, provoking yet more litigation.

But the bottom line is this. The LIV Golf Tour, if allowed to grow without interference from such anticompetitive acts, is a major threat to the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour because it offers what is a much better and more marketable product. True to its name, "LIV," which is the Roman numeral equivalent of 54, LIV Golf tournaments entail 54 holes of competition, not the monotonous 72 holes, 6 hour rounds, and 12 hour per day of competition for players to endure and fans to watch an entire round in PGA Tour and DP World Tour events. To top it all off, players have to endure "draws" as to a starting time, that ultimately decide the outcomes of a tournament based on a "good" or "bad" draw, given weather and other course conditions. This is estimated frequently to swing 3 to 5 shots, up or down, in any given tournament.

To the contrary, during a LIV Golf Tour event, every player starts at the same time from a different tee box on a different hole of the course, except for Sunday when the final two groups tee off of the first tee. So, with LIV golfers playing the course at the same time, this creates fairness by allowing for competition which rewards the best players. And, of course, logically this system also provides for a more compact and fan friendly viewing experience, which is both fun and exciting.

Thus, it would be very attractive for a major network to carry LIV Golf tournaments as coverage would not be so laborious and time consuming for the golfing viewer. Coupled this with creating fairness for the LIV players, as they all would experience the same weather conditions at the same time of the day, and this simply makes sense, furthering fair competition at each event. And, since a LIV Golf Tour event comprises three rounds of golf, instead of the four on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, each individual round means a lot more in terms of a player's ultimate performance if not success.

In addition, a LIV Golf tournament is comprised of both individual and team competition, the latter even making it more like a Ryder Cup event and creating more camaraderie among the players as well as more fan interest. And, couple this with entertainment, music, good food, and concessions, which are also present, and the LIV Golf Tour was crafted to make a fan's experience more enjoyable and fun, bringing in a younger audience as well.

LIV Golf is also more attractive in terms of providing better golfing venues for its players. With fewer participants, only 48 per event, the chosen best golf courses in the United States and around the world remain physically in superior condition, as they are less prone to wear and tear by the hundreds of competing professionals as occurs at PGA and DP World Tour tournaments.

In short, this is why Monahan, Pelley and their tours are so fearful of LIV Golf. It is a more attractive and saleable product, plain and simple, for not just the tour professionals but also the average golf fan — not hitching its consumer market and appeal mainly to middle aged and elderly white country club men and women.

LIV Golf is also more than desirable to top tier professional golfers such as Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Michelson, to name just a few of the present stars, as the Saudi Investment Fund not only pays well, not just with guaranteed contract amounts and attendance stipends, but also with much larger purses at each golf tournament, where competition is fierce, contrary to the false narrative spewed by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and their "friends" in the establishment, coopted and compromised golf media, who falsely brand LIV Golf Tour events as simply exhibitions.

And, importantly, since there are fewer events each year, spaced apart to a greater extent, the grind of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour is significantly lessened, allowing more time for a LIV golfer to have a family and personal life.

All of these benefits scare the hell out of the golfing tour establishment, and it's colluding yes and women men at NBC's Golf Channel in particular. So, in addition to group boycotts, market division and other anticompetitive acts, what has been one of the primary means to destroy LIV Golf and its players? The answer; a highly defamatory and damaging 24/7 barrage of attacks on the morality and character of the LIV Golfers, primarily uttered through an "enfant terrible" and former third rate professional golfer named Brandel Chamblee on Golf Channel. The objective; destroy the players and destroy the engine that drives LIV Golf!

To add insult to injury, when my client Patrick Reed filed his defamation suit, he was falsely smeared again, adding even more force and punch to our lawsuit. And many in the compromised and "bought and paid for" golf media, even went so far as to go after me, claiming that I had not won other defamation cases against public figures like Chamblee. Not only is this false and defamatory, but these incestuous journalistic insects aligned with the PGA Tour and it's partner the Golf Channel, intentionally overlooked the many victories during my 45 year legal career, including two preliminary injunctions against the National Security Agency after Edward Snowden revealed the government's mass surveillance on the American people. This is perhaps the biggest victory in the history of public interest advocacy! Go to www.larryklayman.com to see many more successes. To borrow the famous words of Clint Eastwood, "Make our day!"

With a documented history of smearing the likes of even Tiger Woods, who Chamblee branded a cheater while Tiger was down and out with his personal woes and thus expendable, this insipid and jealous commentator has taken the lead in calling LIV players money hungry and greedy, sportswashers, takers of blood money, terrorists, murderers and other highly damaging names simply for playing on a tour financed by the Saudi Investment Fund. With a contrived obsessive hatred for the Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman aka MBS, he has outrageously made this Saudi monarch the whipping boy for his attempts destroy LIV Golf and it's players, as the Prince is smeared daily over the death of a Washington Post so called journalist named Jamal Khashoggi based on highly suspect CIA "intelligence." The CIA, hardly of the ilk, integrity and much less competence of James Bond and his British MI6, has not been right about much in the past, including Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. The CIA's lies about weapons of mass destruction egregiously resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American servicemen and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and later Afghans, not to mention the hordes of those severely wounded and maimed.

Intentionally not mentioned by Chamblee and others at Golf Channel, is that MBS loves and wants to promote golf — he is an accomplished golfer himself -- and has built over fourteen courses in the kingdom. And he is leading his nation into the Twenty First Century with greater rights for woman and minorities, building high tech cities, and is an important American ally, notwithstanding a major supplier of oil. And, MBS's and his Royal Family's Saudi Investment Fund has invested in a myriad of American and world class companies such as Disney, Boeing and many, many others. Why should we not encourage the prince to further modernize and reform the Saudi kingdom, rather than making MBS an enemy by trashing him only to harm his newborn baby, LIV Golf? This is not only disgusting and dangerous, but the likes of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and their allies could care less. Their one objective is to destroy LIV Golf and anyone and anything that would get in the way, not to promote competition, further national security with a key Middle Eastern ally, build a better Saudi Arabia, or for that matter a better world!

Thus, Chamblee and his comrades at NBC's Golf Channel, are doing the bidding of its partners at the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and their agents such as the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the OWTR. Not coincidentally, the OWTR, with it's alleged dishonest and discriminatory system of doling out world ranking points that are being largely denied to LIV golfers, with the likes of Monahan and Pelley sitting on its board, controls and thus is the gateway to entry into the major tournaments in particular.

Yes, despite all of this, LIV Golf will succeed, not just because it has a superior product to sell to fans, sponsors, networks and others, but because it's leaders and players will stand firm and not turn a blind eye to the tyranny of Jay Monahan's and Keith Pelley's player and fan unfriendly, if not increasingly out of touch tours.

And, after all is said and of course done, professional golf, as a force for good in the United States and around the world, will fully realize it's huge potential. Let freedom ring.