MIAMI (Legal Newsline) - LIV Golf has issued burdensome subpoenas to PGA Tour golfers despite fighting all efforts to keep the PGA Tour from probing LIV's controversial financier.
That's what players like Cameron Young are saying in court documents as they resist being called to depositions by LIV golfers who sued the PGA for freezing them out of PGA events.
Young says he received a subpoena for documents and to testify on March 31 - one day after a deadline in LIV's case.
"LIV's frantic attempt to notice and serve Mr. Young by (or as close to) the March 30 deadline is no coincidence: it knew it had missed the cut but sought to circumvent the court's order," says Young's motion to quash, filed April 25 in Florida federal court.
"When Mr. Young raised the passage of the deadline, LIV backtracked, claiming that the deadline applied only to the parties... LIV's position would suggest that the district court imposed no deadline for nonparty discovery, which makes little sense."
Last year, Young said he had been "very interested" in joining the LIV tour but elected to stay on the PGA Tour. His 2022 season included a second-place finish at the Open Championship and third place at the PGA Championship.
Several golfers who joined LIV sued the PGA Tour in San Francisco federal court in August. They include Phil Mickelson, Bryson Dechambeau and Ian Poulter.
The PGA Tour has sought to investigate whether the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayya have information relevant to the LIV golfers' antitrust claims. Saudi Arabia is LIV's financial backer, a fact that has caused some in the golf world to reject LIV's credibility, given criticism of corruption and human rights abuses in the country.
On April 12, Judge Beth Labson Freeman wrote the PGA Tour should be allowed to investigate, considering the LIV golfers claim the PGA Tour compromised LIV's ability to secure a television contract. The PGA Tour wants to allege this trouble is due to LIV's perception as a Saudi-backed association.
Golfers Young and James Hahn, as well as agent Mark Steinberg, all filed motion to quash subpoenas from the LIV golfers recently. Steinberg is Tiger Woods' agent and says he has already produced nearly 600 pages of documents.
He, like the others, says his recent subpoena missed the March 30 deadline.
"LIV also has literally no excuse for the delay," his motion to quash says. "This is not a case in which LIV belatedly discovered that Mr. Steinberg might have information that could be of interest in the litigation - although it has never set out any basis for believing he has such information even now.
"Further, the subpoena requests all 'documents and communications' with Defendant relating to broad categories of information over the course of nearly four years without limitation. LIV made no attempt to limit these requests to be relevant or proportional..."