LIV Golf in ‘secret eight-figure legal dispute’ with rival league over format
LIV Golf’s 54-hole, no-cut format as well as its team competition could cost the breakaway league over £10 million amid a legal battle with the Professional Golf League
LIV Golf have found themselves involved a legal-dispute that could cost them over £10 million in settling fees with another proposed breakaway tour in the Premier Golf League (PGL).
LIV burst onto the professional golf scene in June 2022, luring the likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka away from the PGA Tour having been bank-rolled by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF). The circuit has prided itself on its 54-hole, no cut tournament format, as well as its team competition.
But the Saudi-backed series were not the first to propose a new strand to the professional golf eco-system, after the PGL rolled out similar plans led former British corporate lawyer, Andrew Gardiner.
Like LIV, the UK-based PGL had hoped to launch in 2022 with a £183 million prize pot on offer to players, but the plan was never fully executed. In the meantime, the LIV setup were able to make their move into the sport, bringing in former world No. 1, Greg Norman as CEO of the circuit.
This appears to have left them in hot water, though, with The Times reporting that Gardiner’s PGL had threatened legal action against LIV bosses. The dispute is yet to be filed in court, with the PGL initially seeking a compensation fee of £50 million to bring the matter to a close.
Similarly to LIV, Gardiner’s proposed league was also set to feature 48 players and 12 teams, with tournaments also being held over 54 holes with a shotgun start. The PGL boss had initially proposed the plans to long-time LIV critic, Rory McIlroy in 2014, an idea he publicly criticised six years later.
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“The more I’ve thought about it, the more I don’t like it,” McIlroy said in February 2020. “For me, I’m out. My position is I’m against it until there may come a day that I can’t be against it. If everyone else goes, I might not have a choice, but at this point, yeah, I don’t like what they’re proposing.”
The PGL had also sought funding from Saudi Arabia, but as their plans failed to make any progress, Golf Saudi and PIF soon turned their attentions to LIV Golf Enterprises in 2021, with the LIV Series forming the following summer. Following the formation of LIV’s similar format in 2022, Gardiner admitted he had issue with Norman and co moving forward with their own entity.
“I’m not angry at all,” the lawyer told Today’s Golfer in June 2022. “We see it as a testament to us because it is, for all intent and purposes, the same format that we devised.Considering this was done in a rush, and in probably the most challenging circumstances you can have, a lot of people whose views I respect have come up to me and said, ‘This is genuinely good’.
“It proves I was right all along. LIV is generating a huge amount of interest, on both sides of the water. That I think is encouraging because we’ve seen proof of the concept.”
