Why Is Patrick Reed Suing The Golf Channel?

If it was possible the golfing world became an even stranger place this week when 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed sued analyst Brandel Chamblee and NBC's Golf Channel for defamation to the whopping tune of $750m.

Chamblee is renowned for his outspoken views on the game and Reed, who recently joined the LIV Golf tour, has always been a divisive character and those two factors have now come to this.

The civil suit was launched in the US district court in Reed's home city of Houston. Reed alleges that he was the victim of 'calculated, malicious, false and reckless attacks' that had a 'direct effect on his livelihood'.

The PGA and DP World Tours were also both named in the papers, as regards LIV Golf, but were not singled out as defendants for their alleged 'anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive practices in order to destroy the upstart LIV Golf Tour' and to 'annihilate any competition with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour even if it means violating antitrust laws and going to extreme and scandalous measures to defame, Mr. Reed, fellow LIV Tour players, and LIV Golf'.

In terms of Chamblee and Golf Channel specifically they are 'alleged to have defamed this world class golfer, by falsely and maliciously branding him a cheater, liar, and a thief and someone who accepts blood money from terrorists'.

The papers also noted that Chamblee has labeled Reed as the “devil” after a rules infraction on the PGA Tour and that his 'fellow LIV golfers associate themselves with the likes of Putin, Mao, Hitler and Stalin'.

It goes on to add that Chamblee and the Golf Channel are 'allegedly fearful that another major network will acquire the rights to broadcast LIV Golf Tour events, competing with them and drawing away viewers and revenues'.

Larry Klayman, who famously sued the Clinton administration 18 times, said this in filing the complaint: "With his joining of LIV Golf, it has reached new, intolerable heights. As a result, enough is enough and it is time for Mr. Reed to protect not only himself and his family, but all LIV Golfers who have been maliciously defamed to further the PGA Tour’s and the DP World Tour’s allegedly illegal attempts to maintain their virtual monopoly and stranglehold over professional golf.

"Neither Chamblee, NBC’s Golf Channel, nor any of their alleged co-conspirators, such as the PGA and DP World Tour, are above the law, and they finally will have their day of legal reckoning before ‘Lady Justice’.”

Two years ago Reed issued Chamblee with a cease-and-desist letter ordering the analyst to stop accusing him of cheating at the Hero World Challenge.