Patrick Reed files $750 million lawsuit against Brandel Chamblee, Golf Channel

Nine-time PGA Tour winner Patrick Reed has filed a $750 million defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and longtime commentator Brandel Chamblee, claiming that both parties “conspired” with the PGA Tour and commissioner Jay Monahan to defame him “since he was 23 years old,” according to multiple reports. 

The lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday alleges that Chamblee and Golf Channel have been “misreporting information with falsity and/or reckless disregard of the truth” in an attempt “​​to destroy his reputation, create hate, and a hostile work environment for him, and with the intention to discredit his name and accomplishments,” the lawsuit read, via Golf Magazine.

Despite alleging nearly a decade’s worth of damage, much of the complaint is focused on Reed’s departure from the PGA Tour for the rival Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit and Chamblee’s public criticism of that decision. 

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“When I hear these players say that they are ‘growing the game’… it makes me want to puke. They’re destroying the game. And they are destroying their reputations,” Chamblee was quoted as saying in the lawsuit, via CBS Sports. 

Reed’s representatives claim that he has suffered more than just a hostile work environment — he’s also lost out on “multiple multi-million dollar sponsorship deals as a result of the continuous harm that Brandel Chamblee and NBC’s Golf Channel’s have inflicted and continue to inflict upon Mr. Reed with defamatory publications that are false and/or made with a reckless disregard for the truth.” 

The lawsuit follows the decision of a federal judge in California who denied a temporary restraining order filed by three former PGA Tour players seeking an injunction to play in the FedEx Cup playoffs last week after the Tour argued that lifting the suspensions of the golfers and allowing them to play would “change the status quo” for the PGA Tour and “give them a fabulous platform” to promote the LIV tour while competing in a PGA event.

The decision stemmed from an antitrust lawsuit filed earlier this month by Phil Mickelson and nine other LIV golfers that claimed the PGA Tour’s indefinite suspensions were aimed at hurting their careers.