Tag: 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs

‘Our players, fans and partners can now focus on what really matters’: Jay Monahan sends memo to PGA Tour players after LIV Golf court ruling

“Our players, fans and partners can now focus on what really matters.”

The first of many legal battles between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf officially took place on Tuesday.

Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford after they sought to sue their way into the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs. Last week, the trio filed for a temporary restraining order as part of a larger antitrust lawsuit against the Tour.

The three golfers argued they should be allowed to compete in the playoffs because it would cause them irreparable financial harm, seeing as they had already earned a qualifying spot before they were suspended for playing in a LIV Golf event. Freeman, however, ruled in the Tour’s favor.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sent a memo to players following the decision. LIV Golf also released a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Report: Player drops name from lawsuit against PGA Tour

“With today’s news, our players, fans and partners can now focus on what really matters over the next three weeks: the best players in the world competing in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, capping off an incredibly compelling season with the crowning of the FedEx Cup champion at the Tour Championship,” Monahan said in part.

Full memo:

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Judge rules against trio of LIV golfers seeking to play in FedEx Cup Playoffs

Memphis will not be the site of any on-course clashes between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf series thanks to a federal judge in California.

Memphis will not be the site of any on-course clashes between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf Series thanks to a federal judge in California.

Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled against LIV golfers Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford after they sought to force their way into the FedExCup Playoffs. Last week, the trio jointly filed for a temporary restraining order last week as part a larger antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour.

The three golfers – who defected to the LIV Golf series after already earning enough points to qualify for the PGA’s postseason – argued they should be allowed to compete in the FedExCup Playoffs largely because it would cause them irreparable financial harm. The postseason begins Thursday with the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis.

Freeman’s ruling is a significant victory for the PGA Tour in the first of what is expected to be a series of legal battles.

FedEx St. Jude Championship: PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ | Tee times

The FedEx St. Jude Championship is scheduled to tee off at 8:15 a.m. ET with Brandon Wu, Trey Mullinax and Brendon Todd on No. 1, and Matthew NeSmith, Gary Woodland and Beau Hossler on No. 10. All told, there will be 121 golfers in the field. The top 125 players in the FedExCup standings qualify for the event, but Tommy Fleetwood (personal), Daniel Berger (injury), Lanto Griffin (injury) and Nate Lashley (injury) will not participate.

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.

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‘I’m not even interested in how much it is’: Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim says he hasn’t looked at bank account since win

“I don’t even know how much I even won.”

It’s safe to say Joohyung “Tom” Kim isn’t in it for the money.

Look no further than a recent interview on SiriusXM’s Hitting the Green show. Kim, who is in Memphis, Tennessee, at TPC Southwind preparing for the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, said he has no idea how much money he won after capturing the Wyndham Championship last week.

“I haven’t checked. I don’t even know how much I even won,” Kim said. “Tiger never checked. If I can just play well, everything will take care of itself. I’m not even interested in how much it is.”

Kim made $1.312 million for his victory and is up to $2.529 million accumulated on the season. Not bad considering the history he made last week.

He’s the first winner on the PGA Tour born in the 2000s and the second-youngest winner since World War II, trailing only Jordan Spieth at the 2013 John Deere Classic.

FedEx St. Jude Championship: PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ | 5 things to watch | Best bets

Dating back to 1983, he became the first player on the PGA Tour to begin a tournament with a quadruple bogey to go on to win the event.

Now, he’s in the FedEx Cup Playoffs for the first time. He’ll tee off at 1:55 p.m. ET off the 10th in the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Thursday.

Kim also said he hasn’t been paying attention to the ongoing lawsuit between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf series. He’s playing where he wants to be, and that’s not changing.

“I mean, for me, our team, we’ve talked about this, but it’s always about playing the PGA Tour,” Kim said. “When I was younger I would see Tiger win on the PGA Tour, not somewhere else, so for me that was always the goal. I felt like when I would one day get really old and not be able to play the game anymore, I would want to at least feel comfortable with retiring and say I gave it — I played with the best players in the world.

“My goal and our team, the goal has always been to be here. I’m glad that I achieved that and hopefully I’ll be here for a very long time.”

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Opinion: As LIV Golf hovers, PGA Tour and FedEx St. Jude Championship have something in common

As much as the PGA Tour wants the LIV Golf battle to be good vs. evil, it was never that straightforward.

MEMPHIS — Leave it to the father of a cancer survivor to put the melodrama consuming professional golf into perspective.

You remember Dakota Cunningham, right?

He was the Olive Branch kid who had Jim Nantz eating out of the palm of his hand on the CBS broadcast when the PGA Tour came to Memphis two years ago. Well, Dakota is 16 years old. He’s playing on the junior golf circuit. The UT-Martin golf coach (NAME)came out to a tournament not that long ago to watch him play.

College golf appears to be in his future, a remarkable feat considering he only got passionate about the sport when he couldn’t play soccer anymore upon being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2017.

So Steve Cunningham was standing there on the edge of the putting green at the new Overton Park 9 on Monday afternoon, watching his son and four other St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patients get pointers from PGA Tour star Collin Morikawa, and reflecting on how important this all had been.

Dakota’s connection with St. Jude and the tournament now known as the FedEx St. Jude Championship has given him access to elite golfers like Morikawa and Justin Thomas and – here’s where Steve paused a beat – Bryson DeChambeau.

DeChambeau, of course, is one of the marquee defectors to the LIV Golf series, the Saudi-funded alternative that the PGA Tour is treating as an existential threat. It’s to the point that Steve Cunningham wasn’t even sure if he could utter this next part out loud.

“I know his name is probably a bad word right now, but when Dakota reaches out to Bryson on Instagram, he responds,” Steve explained, “and he doesn’t have to do that.”

As much as the PGA Tour wants this to be good vs. evil, it was never that straightforward. This is mostly rich guys turning their back on other rich guys in the pursuit of getting even more rich. But chasing the almighty dollar can’t take away what Phil Mickelson, or Dustin Johnson, or Brooks Koepka, or even DeChambeau, have done for St. Jude and this tournament over the years.

All it does is take them away from Memphis. All it does is make you wonder if the PGA Tour knows what it’s doing. All it does is make you worry.

The Tour is returning to Memphis for the 65th year in a row in a more vulnerable position than it ever has been before. It badly miscalculated the viability of LIV Golf. Worst of all, it doesn’t seem willing to admit that yet.

This controversy could very well reach a head at TPC Southwind this week. There are three golfers – three LIV defectors – requesting a temporary injunction in order to play in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. A California federal court is set to hear the case Tuesday afternoon.

“I definitely was surprised to see some guys actually suing us,” said Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer. “It’s a topic of discussion, for sure.”

Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford could be out on the course for a practice round Wednesday, and the implications of their presence is already all anyone can talk about heading into this event. The Tour is arguing these golfers can’t break membership rules and then demand their way back in, can’t have their cake and eat it too.

The real problem, though, is that there probably isn’t enough cake. The sport can’t actually go on like it has the past few months for the long haul.

Contrary to what the golf establishment will have you believe, it’s in everyone’s best interest if the PGA Tour and LIV work out an arrangement that allows both to co-exist. Frankly, it’s in the best interest of Memphis. This is a PGA Tour town, given its history here and the amount of money FedEx has invested in it.

But LIV isn’t going away so long as the Saudis pour money into it, which means this isn’t about winning for the Tour as much as it’s about survival.

See, St. Jude and the PGA Tour have something else in common this week, something beyond this event.

They can’t lose their fight.

St. Jude’s mission is to one day eradicate pediatric cancer, to come up with a cure so that every child is like the five former patients who played a little golf with Morikawa on Monday. But you can’t thrive if you’re not alive, if you don’t survive, if there aren’t people who give that life meaning.

People like Dakota and DeChambeau.

As everyone else followed Morikawa to another green Monday, Dakota stayed back on his own practicing flop shots and chips away from the cameras. He swung over and over again, his future indelibly altered by a sport, a tournament, a hospital and, yes, a controversial golfer his father wasn’t sure he should mention.

The sooner the PGA Tour embraces that perspective, the better.

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Why the FedEx St. Jude Championship field might not be completely set

“Final field set for FedEx St. Jude Championship as FedExCup Playoffs begin.” Read the subject line on the official press release emailed to the media

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – “Final field set for FedEx St. Jude Championship as FedEx Cup Playoffs begin.”

So read the subject line on the official press release that was emailed to the media Monday morning. Only thing is, it might not necessarily be accurate.

That’s because the ongoing, bitterly contentious and very public brouhaha between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series is headed to court Tuesday afternoon. Last week, three LIV Golf players – Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford – filed for a temporary restraining order against the PGA Tour that would nullify their suspensions and allow them to participate in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. This week’s event, for the first time in its 65-year history, serves as the kickoff of the PGA Tour’s three-tournament postseason.

A hearing has been scheduled for 4 p.m. ET, at which time the U.S. District Court of Northern California will decide whether Gooch, Jones and Swafford will be on the course at the start of play Thursday.

FedEx St. Jude Championship: 5 things to watch

But Tuesday’s hearing is much more than that, according to four-time PGA Tour winner Notah Begay III, who won the 2000 FedEx St. Jude Classic and will be part of this week’s television broadcast team for the Golf Channel and NBC Sports.

“Huge precedents are being set,” said Begay. “Either way, it will have a huge impact on the next steps for both organizations and the path for these players moving forward.”

Begay didn’t sugarcoat his opinion of LIV Golf.

“I look at LIV Golf as Ice Capades for golf,” he said. “It’s not competition at its fiercest, highest, most cut-throat level, which is what I think the true golf fans want to see. If players want to be part of the game’s elite, if they want to contest golf at the hardest, most challenging level, you do it on the PGA Tour. I don’t see that changing.”

Begay also isn’t so sure that this week’s ruling will significantly affect on-course matters in Memphis this week.

“The only thing it will impact is the two organizations at the center of this dispute and what their next steps will be,” he said. “A lot’s at stake here. But I don’t know if it changes anybody’s goals as a player.”

Four-time PGA Tour winner Notah Begay III will be part of the broadcast crew for this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. (Kent Horner/NBC Sports)

The potential mandatory injunction isn’t the only legal battle being waged between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Gooch, Jones, Swafford and six others (including last year’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational winner Abraham Ancer) filed a lawsuit challenging their respective suspensions.

The lawsuit, obtained by Golfweek, states: “As the Tour’s monopoly power has grown, it has employed its dominance to craft an arsenal of anticompetitive restraints to protect its long-standing monopoly. Now, threatened by the entry of LIV Golf, Inc. (“LIV Golf”), and diametrically opposed to its founding mission, the Tour has ventured to harm the careers and livelihoods of any golfers … who have the temerity to defy the Tour and play in tournaments sponsored by the new entrant. The Tour has done so in an intentional and relentless effort to crush nascent competition before it threatens the Tour’s monopoly.”

On Monday, the PGA Tour filed a 32-page response to the suit filed against it, as well as a seven-page example of what it calls mischaracterizations and mistruths presented by the LIV players.

Of particular interest in the Tour’s response is that it said 98 percent of its net profits are given to players, tournaments and charities. The Tour said that allowing suspended LIV golfers to compete for FedEx Cup Playoff purses would create financial harm to players who have remained committed to the Tour.

LIV Golf member Matt Jones, pictured at TPC Southwind in Memphis during the 2020 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, along with Talor Gooch and Hudson Swafford, have filed a temporary restraining order against the PGA Tour. (Photo: Christopher Hanewinckel/USA TODAY Sports)

Golfweek reporter Jason Lusk contributed to this report. 

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.

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FedEx St. Jude Championship: 5 things to know about the first leg of the $75 million FedEx Cup Playoffs

Someone is going to be taking home $18 million in a few weeks.

The 2021-22 PGA Tour season has reached the playoffs, meaning there’s only three events left before crowning the season-long champion. First up in the FedEx Cup Playoffs is the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee.

The layout is a par 70 measuring at 7,243 yards. Ron Prichard was the course architect in 1988 with Hubert Green and Fuzzy Zoeller as consultants. The city of Memphis has hosted a PGA Tour event every year since 1958.

Next week, the playoffs move to Wilmington Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware, before a champion is crowned at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in two weeks.

Here are five things to know about the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship:

‘Toughest decision I’ve had to make in my golf career’: Will Zalatoris fires ‘best friend’ caddie at Wyndham Championship, uses coach as fill-in

“The toughest decision I’ve had to make in my golf career.”

GREENSBORO, N.C. — While Will Zalatoris went about fulfilling autograph requests for rows of Wyndham Championship spectators after wrapping up his third round Saturday, a few feet away coach-turned-caddie Josh Gregory explained what he tried to provide during his emergency fill-in role.

“Hopefully a little smile,” Gregory said. “Most importantly, he needed to laugh and smile. He needed to have fun. And I think just commitment. I’m about as positive of a coach as I can be, and I was just super positive with him.”

It made for a contrasting scene in regard to the events that followed the finish of Zalatoris’ previous round one day earlier here at Sedgefield Country Club, when he fired caddie Ryan Goble in the middle of the tournament and called it “the toughest decision I’ve had to make in my golf career.”

The former Wake Forest star and one of the top-ranked players in the world, shot 4-under 66 in third round to improve to 7 under for the tournament, five strokes behind leaders Sungjae Im and Brandon Wu. The third round was suspended by storms Saturday and will resume at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.

Zalatoris delivered eight birdies on the day, recovering from a double bogey on the second hole and weathering two bogeys on the back nine with the 47-year-old Gregory, his short game coach, on the bag for the first time.

Zalatoris, 25, said Goble had been his only caddie on a sanctioned professional tour, and said “he’s basically been my best friend for the last three years.” He added, though, “it was just getting a little unhealthy for both of us and obviously it hurts” about their relationship — a partnering that produced eight results among the top 10, runner-up finishes at the PGA Championship and U.S. Open, and more than $6.6 million in earnings this season.

“We’ve kind of had a rough month together, and it was starting to affect our relationship,” Zalatoris said. “I know guys say that when they split, but it really was. We were guys that we would love to have dinner together and hang out and what was happening on the course was starting bleed off the course, and that’s not what you want.

Zalatoris said Joel Stock will caddie for him in the FedEx Cup playoffs, which starts next week in Memphis. Gregory said he pulled on-the-fly duty as a fill-in caddie for Henrik Norlander in February at the Phoenix Open.

“It was time for a change,” Gregory said of the split between Zalatoris and Goble. “And honestly, it’s what’s best for both of them. The change was coming anyway, and it was time to go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off.”

Zalatoris began the third round at 3 under for the tournament, six shots off the lead. Then, a wayward moment off the tee left him with double bogey on the second hole to drop to 1 under.

“Even when he made double on the second hole, I just said, ‘Hey, let’s go see how many birdies we can make. Let’s have fun,’” Gregory said. “And that’s what he needed. And then he just needed a little extra commitment, a little extra conviction in his decisions. So just tell him how good he is. It’s pretty easy when you’re carrying his bag. He’s really good.”

Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.

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Here’s a closer look at a few PGA Tour players on the bubble ahead of the 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs

Several players are still angling to make the PGA Tour postseason. Some are just inside the cutline while others have work to do.

The PGA Tour regular season is coming to an end Sunday, meaning the FedEx Cup playoffs begin next week.

The Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, will offer some PGA Tour players one last chance to improve their position or perhaps even make it into the field of 125 for the playoffs.

Since the points structure changed in 2009, an average of fewer than three players per year entered the final week of FedEx Cup regular season outside the top 125 in the standings and went on to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Some players also will look to crack the top 200 in the FedEx Cup Eligibility Points List to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, which is set for September 1-4 at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana.

Scottie Scheffler, who has four wins this season, leads the FedEx Cup standings by more than 1,000 points over second-place Cameron Smith. Tony Finau, who has won the past two weeks, is up to No. 7.

Wyndham Championship: PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ | Leaderboard

The three-event playoff series starts at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, next week, but many in the field at the Wyndham Championship this week will be angling to keep their seasons alive.

Here’s a closer look at some interesting names in the FedEx Cup points standings, including some who are in the field and others who need a big week to make the playoffs.