GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA | On the 18th green at Sedgefield Country Club on Sunday afternoon, Justin Lower, whose golf profile doesn’t reach much beyond his family and friends, watched a 7-foot downhill slider stay out of the hole and bowed his head.
Lower stayed there, bent at the waist, feeling the burn of a missed putt he thought cost him his PGA Tour card for next season, a small moment in the wide and contentious world of professional golf but an enormous moment in one golfer’s life.
Lower’s long embrace with his wife just off the 18th green, tear drops still clinging to his eyelashes when he pulled away, was a visceral illustration of what playing the PGA Tour can mean.
Meanwhile, Tuesday in a California courtroom approximately 2,700 miles away, three golfers – Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford – will have a judge decide whether they should be allowed to play in the FedEx Cup playoffs, having sued the PGA Tour to be included despite being suspended for joining LIV Golf.
The three players chose the temptation of LIV Golf’s big money and, as part of an 11-player antitrust complaint against the PGA Tour, are seeking to play in the FedEx St. Jude Championship when it begins Thursday in Memphis.
Lower desperately wanted what the three players – and many of their compatriots at LIV Golf – stepped away from on the PGA Tour, having been warned they faced lengthy and possible lifetime suspensions.The first playoff event will go on without Lower, who will have conditional tour status next season, but it might include Gooch, Jones and Swafford if the judge rules in their favor.
Memphis in August can feel like a sauna, but it’s likely to be chilly around the locker room if the three players’ injunction is granted.
“I wish them well,” said Chesson Hadley, who calls each of the three plaintiff players a friend. “I want them to know that because if they get to play, it’s going to be real icy. They brought that upon themselves.”
“But to try and come back and play the PGA Tour is wrong. You don’t want to be part of the PGA Tour, and now you’re suing every one of the PGA Tour members… It’s greedy, as a lot of players have said. I haven’t had any ill will toward them. I’ve only had ill will toward their comments. Now you’re suing us, and it’s bad.”
BILLY HORSCHEL
Hadley, who played himself off the top 125 bubble again with a strong week at the Wyndham Championship, doesn’t agree with what the LIV players have done, but he’s willing to have dinner with any of the three if they play the Memphis event.
Others may be less inclined to break bread. The LIV lawsuit – all 106 pages of it – turned the proverbial line in the sand into a trench that’s getting deeper by the day.
It was what players were talking about in the dining room, on the practice tee and elsewhere.
“I’m done with that,” Zach Johnson said, raising his hands, when asked about the lawsuit.
But it’s not going away.
“We don’t care if they went to LIV,” Billy Horschel said. “We are happy for them that they were able to make a decision that they thought was best for them, their family. They decided to play golf for more. We all play golf for money, but obviously their main priority is money and not trying to create a legacy of any kind.
“But to try and come back and play the PGA Tour is wrong. You don’t want to be part of the PGA Tour, and now you’re suing every one of the PGA Tour members…
“It’s greedy, as a lot of players have said. I haven’t had any ill will toward them. I’ve only had ill will toward their comments. Now you’re suing us, and it’s bad.”
The tone from the PGA Tour side has shifted. When Davis Love III took dead aim earlier in the week, ripping the LIV players for wanting to have the best of both worlds, it was illustrative of the widening chasm between the sides.
“I don’t have an issue with anyone going to LIV. I have an issue with them wanting to come back and play. If the grass is so green, why do you want to come back?” Joel Dahmen tweeted.As for Justin Lower, he earned the last available PGA Tour card last year via his finish in the Korn Ferry Tour finals and stretched it to the end this season. It helped Lower that several players ahead of him in the FedEx Cup standings were removed from the list when they joined LIV. He was 125th on the points list on the 18th green, and a two-putt par would have kept him 125th.
The three-putt dropped Lower to 127th. What he didn’t know at the time was that even had he made his par putt, he would have been bumped to 126th by Joohyung Kim, who was not eligible for the FedEx Cup playoffs until his victory made him a full member of the tour.
Standing in front of a small group of reporters after his finish, Lower tried to explain all he had been through. It took him a moment to get the words out.
“I don't really know what I'm thinking. It sucks to come up this short really. I mean, to get the last card last fall and only have three starts in the fall, to be in this position I guess is, I don't know, it's cool, but obviously had some help with the LIV guys and whatnot. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that. But I don't know, there's positives, but right now it just flat out sucks,” Lower said.
Lower’s eyes were still red from the tears. He’s spent most of his life chasing what he had within his grasp Sunday afternoon until it slipped away.
He will try to get it back on the golf course, not in a courtroom.
Top: Justin Lower, who just missed making the FedEx Cup playoffs, will have conditional Tour status next season.
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