By Steve Keating
AUGUSTA, Georgia (Reuters) – Jack Nicklaus helped lead the revolt that gave birth to the modern PGA Tour but that fight cannot be compared to the current feud between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and established circuits, said the 18-times major winner on Thursday.
In 1968, Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gardner Dickinson formed a players association that forced concessions out of golf’s governing body the PGA of America, which they felt treated players as indentured servants.
“The PGA of America, when you signed your entry form, you signed away all your rights for everything,” recalled Nicklaus. “And the players didn’t feel that was fair.
“They didn’t have the ability to be able to do anything, basically, on their own, once they signed it, legally do anything on their own.
“So we basically didn’t want to do that… But it was more about freedom to use your own rights.”
Five decades later it is the PGA Tour being labelled as a monopoly and anti-competitive.
Freedom and rights are ideas being echoed by LIV Golf and their outspoken CEO Greg Norman in their dispute with the PGA and DP World Tours which they have accused of anti-trust violations after banning LIV golfers from competing on the established circuits.
Just hours before the start of the Masters’ opening round on Thursday at Augusta National, a London tribunal ruled that the DP World Tour, the former European Tour, could suspend and fine LIV Golf players who featured in conflicting events without permission.
LIV Golf has also filed an antitrust lawsuit in the United States seeking “punitive damages against the PGA Tour for its tortious interference with LIV Golf’s prospective business relationships.”
“I don’t think it was a similar situation,” said 18-times major winner Nicklaus, who rejected a $100 million offer to work with LIV Golf, according to media reports. “The Tour does not have your rights.
“The Tour has allowed you to do the things you need to do individually.
“But also, the Tour has taken our collective rights and done a very, very good job with it to where the players today are — you can see how much money the guys make when they play tournament golf now.
“I think the Tour has done really good job with that. It’s similar in some ways but not really.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Augusta. Editing by Toby Davis)
