Jack Nicklaus Wins $50m Verdict In Defamation Case Over Liv Golf Allegations

Jack Nicklaus, nan 18-time awesome champion, has won a $50m verdict successful a defamation lawsuit against his erstwhile company, bringing an extremity to 1 of golf’s astir bitter business feuds.

A assemblage successful Palm Beach County, Florida, recovered that Nicklaus Companies – nan patient he founded and later sold – defamed him by spreading mendacious claims that he had considered a $750m connection to go a nationalist look of nan Saudi-backed LIV Golf League and that he was nary longer mentally fresh to negociate his business affairs. The six-person assemblage ruled that nan company’s actions damaged nan 85-year-old’s estimation and exposed him to “ridicule, hatred, mistrust, distrust aliases contempt”.

The verdict came aft 4 and a half hours of deliberation. Nicklaus embraced family and friends successful nan courtroom aft nan decision. “We tremendously admit nan clip that nan assemblage put into this case,” said his attorney, Eugene Stearns. “They were extraordinarily conscientious and dedicated, and we’re happy that Jack’s been vindicated.”

The conflict dates backmost astir 2 decades. In 2007, Nicklaus sold nan authorities to his name, image and play people creation business to Nicklaus Companies for $145m successful a woody financed by billionaire banker Howard Milstein. After stepping down from an executive domiciled successful 2017, Nicklaus was bound by a five-year noncompete clause that prevented him from taking connected caller creation projects. When that regularisation expired successful 2022, nan institution sued him successful New York, alleging that he had diverted business opportunities and secretly entertained talks pinch LIV Golf.

Nicklaus responded pinch a defamation suit of his own, accusing Milstein and different executives of planting mendacious stories that he had “sold out” nan PGA Tour – an statement he considered cardinal to his bequest – for Saudi money. According to tribunal documents, a Nicklaus Companies charismatic had arranged for him to meet pinch Golf Saudi representatives successful 2021 to talk people creation work. During that meeting, Nicklaus said, he was asked to return a activity domiciled pinch LIV Golf but instantly declined because of nan PGA Tour’s guidance to nan breakaway league.

The suit besides accused nan institution of circulating rumors that Nicklaus was suffering from dementia and could nary longer grip his affairs. “What they said was, ‘You request to person nan keys taken away,’” Stearns told ESPN. “It was unfortunate, but Jack’s estimation has now been restored.”

Lawyers for Nicklaus Companies based on that nan lawsuit was simply a business conflict and that Nicklaus’s stature successful nan crippled remained untarnished. “His estimation is arsenic stellar arsenic it’s ever been,” defense lawyer Barry Postman told jurors. But nan assemblage sided pinch Nicklaus, though Milstein and institution executive Andrew O’Brien were cleared of individual liability.

The verdict follows a abstracted tribunal ruling earlier this twelvemonth successful which a New York judge affirmed that Nicklaus is free to usage his ain sanction and likeness successful early play ventures, moreover arsenic nan institution retains nan authorities to waste branded apparel and equipment.