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LIV Golf’s Patrick Reed filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and network analyst Brandel Chamblee in a Texas federal court on Tuesday that seeks more than $750 million in damages.
The lawsuit alleges that Golf Channel and Chamblee worked “in concert with the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour” to “maliciously cause a hostile workplace environment for Mr. Reed.”
“These induced personal attacks have in turn harmed his performance at tournaments and events, despite his excellent record, which record would be even much greater without the disruption and emotional distress caused by these personal attacks,” Reed’s attorney Larry Klayman wrote in the civil complaint filed in Houston.
The lawsuit takes particular aim over Chamblee’s “blood money” comments about the golfers defecting the PGA Tour for millions offered by Saudi-backed LIV.
“Falsely stating that someone is playing for blood money is patently and plainly defamatory because it creates the false implication that Mr. Reed is supporting acts of terrorism and/or human rights violations,” the lawsuit states. “Mr. Reed has never accepted ‘blood money,’ and in no way supports terrorism and/or human rights violations, or murder.”
The feud between Chamblee and Reed isn’t new. Reed’s former attorney sent Chamblee a cease-and-desist letter two years ago.
A spokesperson for NBC Sports — which operates Golf Channel — declined comment on Wednesday.
Courthouse News was the first outlet to report the lawsuit.
The claims are numerous:
- The lawsuit alleges that Chamblee “has shown himself to be a disciple of the ‘Skip Bayless’ school of sports analysis—the fundamental tenet of which is that it is more important to be loud than it is to be correct.”
- The “longstanding pattern and practice of maliciously defaming” Reed included a 2019 segment where Chamblee said on air that Reed’s “ego is as big as Jupiter.”
- Chamblee “went so far as to defame and smear Mr. Reed’s morals and ethics” at the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open when Reed took a free drop that Chamblee criticized.
- After Reed left for LIV Golf in June, Chamblee said that players who defected the PGA Tour “are showing us that they are the greediest, most self-serving, self-interesting, willfully blind players in the world of golf today.”
The lawsuit is the latest LIV Golf-related legal action taken on behalf of the Saudi-backed series’ players.
Earlier this month, Phil Mickelson and 10 other LIV Golf players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, and Matt Jones, plaintiffs in that federal case, also sought a temporary restraining order in order to play in the FedEX Cup Playoffs, but the trio were denied the injunction last week.
Klayman, a right-wing activist attorney, is most notable for filing so many lawsuits against Bill Clinton during his presidency that he became an inspiration for a character on NBC’s “The West Wing.” He also filed a lawsuit in an attempt to keep Barack Obama off the 2012 ballot in Florida that was dismissed.
In 2020, Klayman was suspended from practicing law for 90 days by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals after the body ruled he “flagrantly violated” ethics rules.
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