The team includes three players – Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones – who are seeking a temporary restraining order to allow them to compete in the FedEx Cup play-offs, which begin next week. The complaint and petition for a temporary restraining order were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Bryson DeChambeau, Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Jason Kokrak and Peter Uihlein are the other players to put their names to the suit, claiming the PGA Tour is trying to hurt their careers. “The Tour’s conduct serves no other purpose than to harm players and exclude the first substantial competitive threat the tour has faced in decades,” the lawsuit states. “The purpose of this action is to strike down the PGA Tour’s anti-competitive rules and practices that prevent these independent golf contractors from playing when and where they choose.” The PA news agency has reached out to the PGA Tour for comment. Poulter was one of three members of the DP World Tour to successfully win an interim suspension from July’s Scottish Open pending a decision on their substantive appeals. Players were also fined £100,000 for taking part in the first LIV golf event in June after being rejected for the required releases. Speaking on Tuesday, former Ryder Cup captain Davis Love said PGA Tour players could take the “nuclear option” of boycotting events if the LIV rebels successfully challenge their suspension. “If the LIV guys sue and they’re allowed to play on the PGA Tour, the players are pretty sick of it,” Love said at a news conference ahead of the Wyndham Championship. “We understand that we make the rules on the PGA Tour and the commissioner enforces our rules and we don’t want these guys playing, coming in and picking our tournaments. “We hold all the papers. We tell the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] and in Washington, “No, we support the rules. We don’t want these kids playing. We don’t care what the courts say.” “The nuclear option is to say ‘Fine, if they have to play in our competitions we just won’t play.’ The suspension from the PGA Tour means players such as Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed cannot represent the United States at September’s Presidents Cup, when Love will captain the team. “I said to the players I’ve spoken to who have left or are thinking about leaving, it’s your decision and you do what’s right for you, but understand [the] consequences,” Love added. “I tried to sound like my father and I probably wasn’t very good at it. I didn’t argue. I said you can be Tiger Woods or you can be banned from the game, take your pick. “But understanding the consequences, you subscribed to these rules. I had to commit by last Friday or I won’t be playing this week. I have to play 15 tournaments or I don’t get to vote and I don’t get my retirement money. You have rules to follow. “I said you are correcting to break a rule which is a big rule and you will be punished for it. “And Jay’s [Monahan, PGA Tour commissioner] they’ve been saying it for a year and some of them got it, some of them said it wasn’t going to happen, and some of them lied, [saying] “I don’t do this, I don’t do that.” Love admits he was “dead wrong” when he said six months ago that LIV wasn’t going to happen and that Phil Mickelson would be the only player to jump ship, but added: “I don’t know what happens from here and hereafter. out, but I know it’s going to be a fight and the players are getting more and more united against him.”
