A lawsuit has been filed in Florida alleging that the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) have colluded to try to eliminate LIV Golf.
The Second Amended Class Action Complaint, filed on 11 November by US Senate candidate, attorney Larry Klayman, claims that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley broke competition laws by conspiring to restrain trade. Monahan and Pelley sit on the board of the OWGR and the lawsuit alleges that it and the tours attempted to end LIV Golf “in its infancy”.
The lawsuit also alleges that PGA Tour consumers “have seen the quality of the product that they are paying for at PGA Tour events be diluted and destroyed by a deterioration of the talent level at PGA Tour events due to the exclusion of many of the top players in the world who have signed to LIV Golf.”
It also claims there’s a 34% rise in ticket prices for the 2023 Players Championship, and states that “some packages for the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Florida are at least ten percent higher in 2023 than in 2022”, describing the increases as “supracompetitve prices”.
Explaining his motivation for filing the lawsuit via a release, Klayman, who is also representing Patrick Reed in two lawsuits against various media figures, said: “Consumers, that is Florida golf fans including me, have as much right as anyone to benefit from a free market, which would allow all golf leagues and independent contractor players to fairly compete. But the defendants have illegally worked hard to prevent this, as the PGA Tour and its co-conspirator defendants will not tolerate honest and fair competition, as it will challenge their trillion dollar plus monopoly to totally dominate the golf world.”
The first amended class action complaint naming the OWGR was filed on 4 November.
Golf Monthly has reached out to the DP World Tour for comment.
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