The Houston Division of the Southern Judicial District of Texas (USA) received a lawsuit on Wednesday from golfer Patrick Reed against Golf Channel and one of its star commentators, Brandel Chamblee. At a time of schism in world golf, with the PGA Tour and the new Saudi-funded circuit, the LIV, at odds both in and out of court, Reed is opening a new front for what he believes has been a smear campaign against one of the great issuers of this sport in the United States against him.
Patrick Reed, lawsuit
The player, a native of Texas and who decided months ago to renounce his affiliation with the PGA to enroll in the LIV experiment (the figures of the agreement have not been made public, which in any case is a millionaire), asks for a sum of 750 million dollars (737.5 euros).
He alleges that Golf Channel and Chamblee orchestrated, in “conspiracy” with the PGA Tour and his commissioner, Jay Monahan, a scheme to defame him “since he was 23 years old.” In the 30 pages that the lawsuit consists of, it denounces that he was “misinformed with falsehoods and/or a reckless disregard for the truth, that is, with real and constitutional malice, deliberately omitting key material facts to deceive the public” about his figure, which was targeted with the intention of “destroying his reputation and creating hate and a hostile work environment for him”.
“It is well known on Tour that Mr. Reed has endured abuse to a greater extent than any other golfer from spectators, who have been allowed to yell obscenities at him only to be glorified by the Golf Channel,” he continues before pointing to Chamblee.
, which is considered “the main spokesman and agent in promoting this defamatory agenda and inflicting severe damage on Mr. Reed, LIV and other golfers who have signed with LIV” Among the specific facts reported are Chamblee’s comments about Reed’s disqualification from the 2019 Hero World Challenge for improving his ball position in a bunker.
Reed’s lawyer even sent the communicator a letter asking him to stop calling Reed a cheat for that, which he did not do. Regarding the signing of him by LIV, he even said that Reed would be willing “to play golf for Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Vladimir Putin”, all of them well-known dictators.
The lawsuit was filed by Larry Klayman, founder of the conservative group Freedom Watch, who has already led other similar legal cases such as the one between the Republican politician Roy Moore and the humorist Sacha Baron Cohen or the famous sheriff Joe Arpaio against a US media conglomerate.
