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Legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus was awarded $50 million by a Florida jury after suing Nicklaus Companies, his former company financed by billionaire Howard Milstein, for defamation.
The 18-time major champion sued the company after it claimed Nicklaus was considering a $750 million deal to join LIV Golf and was no longer mentally fit to manage his business affairs.
Nicklaus met with the Saudis in 2021, but said he had turned down offers twice, according to Sports Illustrated.
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Jack Nicklaus speaks with his attorneys during a break in closing arguments in Judge Reid P. Scott II’s courtroom at Judge Daniel TK Hurley’s courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, on October 20, 2025. (THOMAS CORDY/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
“The Saudis offered me just over $100 million to do work probably similar to what Greg is doing,” Nicklaus said at the time. “I turned it down. Once verbally, once in writing. I said, ‘Guys, I have to stay on the PGA Tour.’ ‘I helped start the PGA Tour.'”
The lawsuit said Nicklaus “had no interest in the offer and rejected it because he felt the PGA Tour was an important part of his legacy, and if the PGA was not in favor of a new league, he did not want to get involved,” according to ESPN.
Jack Nicklaus addresses the media before the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday at Muirfield Village Golf Club on June 4, 2024, in Dublin, Ohio. (Tracy Wilcox/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)
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“These are the people who brought up a story,” Nicklaus’ attorney Eugene Stearns said in his closing argument, via the Palm Beach Post. “The story is a lie… What they wanted to create in the public’s mind is that Jack Nicklaus is an old man who sold out to the Saudis.”
The Palm Beach Post said the jury found that the defendants spread false information that damaged Nicklaus’s reputation and led to “ridicule, hatred, mistrust, mistrust or contempt.”
“It’s always difficult in a defamation case to prove reputational damage, because particularly for a guy like Jack, it’s always very good,” Stearns added in a comment to ESPN. “But I think what was important was the dispute that arose three and a half years ago when the company told the world that Jack was selling the PGA Tour to Saudi golf, when that was not true. So we are happy that Jack has been vindicated.”
Jack Nicklaus tees off on the 18th hole during the final round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. (Aaron Doster/Image Images)
Nicklaus, 85, is widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time, and perhaps the greatest, having won 73 events in total. His 18 majors are the most ever — three more than Tiger Woods, who is tied with Sam Snead for the most PGA wins with 82.
Nicklaus’ last major tournament was the 1986 Masters, which he won 24 years after his first.
