The antitrust world is transfixed by the government’s high-profile cases against tech giants like Google and Facebook, but another antitrust drama is bubbling in an unlikely place: professional golf. The Commissioner of the PGA Tour recently threatened the world’s greatest golfers with a lifetime ban if they played in a fledgling league that Hall of Fame golfer Greg Norman is creating.
The PGA Tour is a non-profit whose charter requires it to act in the common interests of professional tournament golfers. Those golfers are independent contractors, not employees, so they are supposed to have the flexibility and freedom to choose where to play and who pays them.
The Tour’s allies have echoed the threats. The CEO of the PGA of America, for example, recently threatened to ban any golfers from the Ryder Cup and the PGA Championship if they played with a competitor to the PGA Tour.
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