Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion, has won a $50m verdict in a defamation case against his former company, bringing an end to one of golf’s most bitter business feuds.
A jury in Palm Beach County, Florida, found that Nicklaus Companies – the firm he founded and later sold – defamed him by spreading false claims that he had considered a $750m offer to become a public face of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League and that he was no longer mentally fit to manage his business affairs. The six-person jury ruled that the company’s actions damaged the 85-year-old’s reputation and exposed him to “ridicule, hatred, mistrust, distrust or contempt”.
