DUBLIN, Ireland -- An Irish magazine apologized to
Tiger Woods's wife Elin Nordegren on Friday and agreed to pay
the former model "substantial" damages after it published fake
nude pictures during the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club.
"The false and deeply offensive article in The Dubliner
magazine, with the accompanying photograph of another woman
wrongly claimed to be me, caused great personal distress to me
and my family," Nordegren said in a statement.
Nordegren did not disclose how much she had received in
damages in settlement of her libel action brought against the
magazine in November 2006.
Nordegren did not disclose the scale of damages received in
settlement of a libel action brought in November 2006 but a
source who was in the court room said the magazine had agreed to
pay $182,000 over two years.
If The Dubliner defaults on payment it will become liable
for another $182,000 plus costs, the source said.
She said the damages would be donated to cancer support
charities in memory of Heather Clarke, the late wife of British
golfer Darren Clarke.
The statement from Nordegren said Trevor White, publisher of
The Dubliner, had apologized unreservedly for the article.
"The story was cheap, tasteless and deliberately offensive,"
it quoted White as saying in the magazine's apology.
White also described the article, entitled "Ryder Cup Filth
For Dublin?", as utterly and comprehensively false, profoundly
hurtful and shameful.
"The article was accompanied by a nude photograph of a woman
falsely identified as being Elin Woods and the article falsely
stated other such photographs were to be found on Internet porn
sites," he said.
"There are no such photographs of Ms. Nordegren Woods on
Internet sites or elsewhere. Ms. Nordegren Woods has never
posed, or been photographed, nude."
The magazine also apologized for its initial defense that
the article was intended as a satirical parody, saying instead
it was a "cheap, vulgar lie which was unforgivably insulting to
Ms. Nordegren Woods".