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street. Albans, England – What sound do you make when declaring confidential documents?
The golf world is finding out. This past weekend, more than 300 pages of classified documents were made public – after an apparent mistake by a Palm Beach County court clerk – many of which revealed the back-and-forth communications and strategic decisions implemented by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Official World Golf Ranking over the years. the past three years.
For starters, there is correspondence in June 2021 between PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and Keith Bailey, CEO of the DP World Tour, drafting a memo that Bailey will send to Golf Saudi, “I hope we can find a collaborative way to work together in the future as we have done in the past.” “. A month later, in Malta, Billy sat down with Golf Saudi.
The documents include an assessment of the European Tour group, commissioned by the PGA Tour, dated June 2022, which encouraged a 100 percent takeover of the European entity by the PGA Tour. What are the origins of the golden goose that the PGA Tour is looking forward to? Majority ownership of Ryder Cup Europe. “Overall, we find the European Tour Group to be an uninvested and borderline distressed asset,” the document reads, detailing that a full integration of the tours would “protect the global talent flow” in the wake of “other emerging tours that focus solely on catching non-tours.” The project is for the big players.
There are also letters in which Monahan shares talking points for Trip Policy Board Director Ed Herlihy to consider a recall at an upcoming meeting, as well as directions to be sent to other directors. by Herlihy. In a document titled “Remarks of Guy Monahan, PGA Tour Player – Town Council Meeting” more talking points are outlined, this time as fodder for Tiger Woods. The text includes lines complimenting Monahan, among others, while also serving as a battle cry for members of the tour: “LIV Golf is trying to take over the PGA Tour and take over golf.” Ultimately, Woods broke a long period of silence by tweeting, “I have never seen this document until today, nor did I attend the players meeting that was being set up for Travelers 2022.”
How are these documents published with the PGA Tour? Well, her lawyers Submit an emergency request to close it – All pages numbered 3 to 357 – Affirms that they “contain trade secrets under Florida law.”
How do you deal with, say, the leaders of the Majestics, one of LIV Golf’s 12 teams?
“[This period has] Westwood told me Wednesday during a media roundtable at this week’s LIV Golf event; He was joined by the four members of his team: Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson, Sam Horsfield and Laurie Kanter. “Deals that were in the making and things like that. Situations where people sat and everything. It’s up to you guys to go through all of that, make sense of that, and check what everybody said in the last year — whether they’re honest or not.”
The “you guys” in this scenario were the dozens of members of the media who sat in a Majestics-branded lounge behind the driving range. A reporter replied, “357 pages, it’ll take me a while.”
“Well, that’s your job,” Poulter jumped. “You guys have been awarded…”
Poulter followed up with another question on another topic that preoccupied the group’s attention. But he later ended his point in a conversation with Your Interest Really. Poulter seems acutely aware of how much (or, more importantly, how little) ink has been spilled about more than 300 pages of emails, assessments, and presentations. There needs to be a larger response, he said, involving, perhaps, some journalists apologizing for coverage over the past 12 months that might be proven false by this revelation through the judicial discovery process. Stop naming names or highlighting specific reports.
As part of the discovery, the PGA Tour shared more than 30,000 documents with representatives of Larry Klayman, the attorney who has filed a class action lawsuit against the tour, DP World Tour, The Golf Channel, and OWGR on behalf of golf enthusiasts. Announcing to the public, even if by clerical error, confidential records will, by its very nature, be a net negative for the PGA Tour. Is there room for non-confidential rebuttal to document sharing? That’s not how this works. Toothpaste cannot be put back into the tube. Notably, both sides of the litigation agreed that the documents should be kept confidential, and Judge Luis Delgado ordered that they be stricken from the public agenda.
Timely or not, there is a clear desire from LIV players for revenge – particularly on the golfing media – here at the ninth event in the 2023 LIV Golf season. This is the first time that LIV Golf has returned to the site of one of its tournaments for 2022, or rather the first opportunity it has had to do things differently than it did a year ago. Building racks is less important. The brand of the 12 teams is more important. Press Conferences, Media Coverage – Well, so much has changed in the last month that 13 months feels like 13 years.
“Keyboard warriors are one thing,” said Graeme McDowell. “Which comes with the ground. But, like, the professional media, writing some damn things about players who’ve spent 20 years building solid reputations for themselves that seem to fade overnight, I look back in perspective now and think to myself, These guys were Paid actors to narrate – as I say, they were paid to star in it.
“All these players here are trying to do is represent a round of golf that they’re paid to play on. Everyone has their own territory to defend, and they’ve done that, and sometimes it’s very stinging.”
McDowell, like Boulter, stopped naming names or specific reports. Bubba Watson, when asked about his relationship with the golf media, said, “First of all, everyone wants to feel loved, right? And when you change jobs, it’s the same job, just a different company. It’s sad to be talked about, called names.” “.
Watson admitted that he had not read what was in the suit, and it wasn’t even clear what suit he was talking about. At any time during the last ten months there have been four or five surveillance suits, with documents from each clearly related to the other; LIV players who keep records are interested to see it.
“I just think people are better informed now, right?” Westwood said during his press conference. “As I said earlier, there is more transparency as to what is going on in all of the golf organizations. It’s not a lot of rationalization, it’s just that people know the real facts now.”
Three weeks ago, Phil Mickelson admitted, “I still want to see things come out in Discovery.” He is not alone. This feeling was creeping around the Centurion Club’s driving range.
In the meantime, more information may come from a hearing scheduled for Tuesday in Washington, D.C., where representatives of the PGA Tour will meet with the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under the watchful eye of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has rushed to Criticism of the proposed transaction The day it was announced.
in another place, New York times He filed a motion to disclose court records of the dismissed lawsuit with bias between the feuding golf tours. LIV Golf and the PGA Tour — now with the option to be opposing allies rather than enemies — have until July 11 to file an opposition. a hearing on it times The motion is expected to be filed on August 3, the one-year anniversary of said lawsuit Mickelson et al. vs. the PGA Tour.
If anything comes of it, it will likely be similar but different from what appeared this week, as it would include documentation from both sides.
Stay tuned.