In a defamation case against Nicklaus Companies, which is currently helmed by billionaire banker Howard Milstein, a Florida jury found in favor of Jack Nicklaus, awarding him $50 million.
A Manhattan trial judge’s denial of the company’s bid to prevent Nicklaus from using his own name to promote the golf course design and other business ventures came months before the award. The 85-year-old icon countersued after damaging statements made in prior litigation. Nicklaus alleged in his claim that defendants wrongly suggested that he had taken a $750 million offer to become the public face of the controversial Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf League and that they then falsely passed this on to media organizations.
Lawyers for Nicklaus (the golfer) provided proof that an official from Nicklaus Companies had set up his 2021 meeting with Golf Saudi officials to discuss designing a golf course in Saudi Arabia. At the meeting, Nicklaus learned Golf Saudi wanted to bring him onboard in a dominant role with LIV Golf. Court paperwork explained that Nicklaus “was not interested in the proposal and turned it down because he viewed the PGA Tour as part of his legacy; he would not take part in something that the PGA did not want to happen.
According to filings in court, Nicklaus also accused the defendants of saying that he doesn’t have the mental capacity to handle his business and has dementia.
The jury found that the firm tarnished the 18-time major winner’s reputation and made him subject to “ridicule, hatred, mistrust, distrust or contempt.”.
The company was found against by the jury. An executive at Nicklaus Companies, Andrew O’Brien, was cleared of personal liability.
The dispute between Nicklaus and the company goes back to May 2007 when Nicklaus Companies paid the golf legend $145 million for the exclusive rights to his golf course design services. This also includes all promotional and marketing and branding rights. Nicklaus left Nicklaus Design in 2017, which activated a five-year noncompete clause which disallowed him from designing any golf course as an independent. After that, he resigned from the board of the company in May 2022. Soon after, Nicklaus Companies sues Nicklaus and his company GBI Investors for tortious interference, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. The allegation is said to have diverted multiple projects and business opportunities from Nicholas’s Companies for self-gain.
A Florida arbitrator ruled in July 2024 that Nicklaus was free to design golf courses on his own, no longer tied to the noncompete clause.
