Hunter Mahan has questioned whether it’s legal to ban players who take part in LIV Golf events, and feels there’s a big court case coming unless something changes.
The PGA Tour was quick to issue indefinite suspensions to players taking part in LIV events, and there have been murmurings about Majors bans, although the R&A has denied that. But six-time PGA Tour winner Mahan, talking to Golf.com’s Subpar podcast, questioned whether banning LIV Players from events would stand up in court.
“Is that legal,” asked Mahan. “How do you do that? How do you say because you’re not part of the PGA Tour but you’re part of the Asian Tour and you can play, you’re part of the European Tour and you’ve earned the right to play, you’re now part of the LIV Tour but you’ve qualified to play but we’re not gonna let you play?
“That’s a lawsuit and I don’t think they’re going to win that. I’ve talked to quite a few people and everyone’s like ‘you can’t just do that, you can’t just tell someone they can’t do something when they’ve earned the right to do it’. I don’t know what the answer is, I want to see the best in play but this is also what leverage looks like, it’s sort of uncomfortable.”
“The players are the ones winning in this situation,” Mahan told the Subpar podcast. “How can I sit there and tell them, no, you’re not allowed to take that. It seems like the players are the ones who are going to benefit but I hope the game of golf is going to benefit too. I’m a little worried for the fans. Are we not going to see these players compete against each other?”
He said: “The PGA Tour’s gonna have to start really working with the young college players and they’re gonna have to start selling themselves, because LIV’s coming. We’ve already seen that with Eugenio, number two amateur, they’re coming after the young guys. James Piot, he’s on the LIV Tour, Chacarra’s over there. They’re selling themselves to the young players and the PGA Tour’s gonna have to do that.
“Pierceson Coodey, he already won on the Korn Ferry Tour. If I was the Tour, I’m probably gonna talk to him and say ‘You’re on the PGA Tour now. We want you on this Tour. You’re a bad ass, we want you on here because you’re the future of golf. We don’t need to go through this whole process, we want you here right now’.
“I’m happy for the guys playing on the LIV Tour,” he said, “And I’m happy for the PGA Tour players making their own choices. Choices are usually never a bad thing. This is far from over.”
