‘Rory seems to thrive on drama. When there’s chaos around him, he actually plays better’
As golfing superstar McIlroy’s complicated love life ends up in the rough, his PGA form is proving doubters wrong...
By BARBARA MCMAHON
ON THE eve of the annual Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, it is a cherished tradition that competitors and past winners play a shortened nine-hole course with their families. Last year, world No2 Rory McIlroy attended the joyful event with his toddler daughter Poppy and wife Erica Stoll, both sporting matching white jumpsuits with the Co. Down golfer’s name proudly emblazoned on their backs. The picture-perfect family delighted the watching crowd as two-yearold Poppy tumbled on the perfectly manicured green, giggled with her daddy and was at one point held aloft by him as an adoring, and perfectly coiffed Erica looked on.
Little wonder McIlroy declared the occasion ‘always one of the best days of the year’. This April, however, there was no such repeat of the charming vignette, although McIlroy was competing.
No explanation was given for
Erica’s absence and if onlookers were concerned most concluded that the golfer was probably just focusing on his Masters preparation as he made his 16th attempt to win a coveted champion’s
Green Jacket and his 10th time looking for that elusive Grand
Slam.
The following month it was a similar story, with no sign of the willowy Erica when he won the
Wells Fargo championship in
North Carolina. And the golfer failed to mention her at all on US
Mother’s Day last weekend, when he chose to pay a gushing tribute to his mother Rosie instead.
Then last week came the news that has shocked golf fans around the world. Seemingly out of the blue, 35-year-old McIlroy filed for divorce in Florida from his wife of seven years, saying their marriage was ‘irretrievably broken’.
McIlroy has instructed the same lawyer who oversaw
Tiger Woods’ divorce from Elin Nordegren, mother of his two children. In striking echoes of his infamous split from fiancee and former No 1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki almost exactly a decade earlier, he gave virtually no warning of the separation and acted with an apparent ruthlessness that has ricocheted around the globe.
And now the question being asked by many is: has McIlroy coolly dispatched his devoted wife and the mother of his child in a calculated bid to return to the top of his game?
For, it has been noted, just weeks after publicly jettisoning Wozniacki in 2014 – six months before they were due to marry and after the couple’s wedding invitations had been sent out – McIlroy went on to win the same US PGA championship he hopes to triumph in again this weekend. ‘Everybody is absolutely stunned by this decision, and the timing of it makes it even more of a mystery, coming just before a major tournament that he has, arguably, the best chance in a decade of winning,’ says sports writer and author April Todd, who has followed McIlroy’s career closely over the years.
‘It’s also coming up to the US Open and then the Olympics, and they are all tournaments he wants to play and do well in. If he’s got all this turbulence in his personal life, then I don’t know how he’s going to compartmentalise it all.
‘It’s certainly not something most sportsmen of his calibre would want to deal with at this point in their careers.’
What McIlroy’s 36-year-old wife makes of all this is not clear.
The striking blonde has taken down her social media accounts and was seen looking strained and without her wedding ring, near the couple’s $8.9m (€8.2m) home in Florida. Neither she nor her family have responded to calls.
Described by Todd as a ‘supportive wife and not a diva in any way,’ New York-born Erica first met McIlroy when he overslept during the 2012 Ryder Cup and nearly missed his tee time.
Erica, who was working on PGA transportation, arranged a police escort to get him to the course in Medinah, Illinois, in time.
The couple were friends initially but started dating at the end of 2014, after his split from Wozniacki and got engaged in Paris a year later.
‘I don’t feel Erica wants to change me in any way. I can be myself around her... there’ s no bulls***, no acting, no show,’ he said of her.
The pair married in 2017 in extravagant style at the 13th-century Ashford Castle in Co. Mayo, where guests included actor Jamie Dornan, One Direction’s Niall Horan and Coldplay musician Chris Martin. Ed Sheeran and Stevie Wonder provided the entertainment and the 200 guests were also treated to falconry displays and clay pigeon shooting at the
Has he dispatched his wife to return to the top of his game?
four-day event, which is thought to have cost around £400,000 (€466,000).
News that the apparent fairytale has unravelled will have brought back uncomfortable memories for at least two former jilted lovers. The golfing legend met his childhood sweetheart Holly Sweeney at his local golf club in Holywood, just outside Belfast, when she was 14 and he was 16. Holly was at Rory’s side as he rose through the amateur ranks and turned professional, cutting quite a dash when he would pick her up from school in his BMW. The young couple, who lived together with their dogs Theo and Gus, split in 2011 after he fell for Wozniacki, the Danish tennis star.
In an interview Holly said she had been crushed when McIlroy unchivalrously told her he ‘fancied’ Wozniacki as they watched her play on television in 2011.
Although McIlroy told reporters the couple’s split a few months later was ‘amicable,’ Holly gave a rather different story. ‘It killed me,’ she told the Irish Sunday Mirror. ‘I went away to Dubai as soon as we split up, so I didn’t have to look or think about it.’
Shortly afterwards, the golfing legend finally met Wozniacki in person at a boxing match in Germany and they soon began dating. On New Year’s Eve in 2013, he got down on one knee and proposed.
Invitations had been sent out for their wedding when McIlroy announced their split a few months later, claiming the decision was mutual and ‘they both thought it was for the best’. McIlroy later confirmed the decision to split – reportedly in a three-minute phone call – had been his. ‘The problem is mine. The wedding invitations issued at the weekend made me realise that I wasn’t ready for all that marriage entails.’ Friends, however, privately wondered whether Wozniacki’s posting of a jokey but unflattering photo of a slack-jawed McIlroy asleep on a plane a few weeks earlier – which was said to have angered him – touched a nerve.
A friend of Wozniacki, talking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, said he is not surprised the golfer’s marriage has now foundered.
‘When McIlroy and Caroline met, he loved that she was as famous as him and understood sport.
When they split up, it was because she was as famous as him and understood sport. The poor woman couldn’t win.
It was all about him and whenever anything went wrong it was her fault. A lot of these sportsmen who have been playing since they were young are entirely selfish.’
The insider went on: ‘The reason Erica appealed more than Caroline was that Erica looked after him and allowed him to be like a spoiled teenager. He’d always tell the story about how he and Erica met and how she saved him from being late to the tee.
‘Caroline never had any time for that because she was playing tennis all the time.’
A few months after his split from Wozniacki, McIlroy met Meghan Markle in her preHarry days.
Romance rumours were sparked after she posted a flirty video with the golf star as they took part in the Ice Bucket challenge, designed to help raise awareness of the medical conditions ALS, a form of motor neurone disease.
On her then blog The Tig, Meghan wrote: ‘He is not just the real deal… he is real. And perhaps that’s what makes him more cherished.’
In his 2022 book Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors, author Tom Bower claimed Meghan was challenged by her then boyfriend, chef Cory Vitiello, about a romance and she insisted she and McIlroy were just friends.
Vitiello said he believed her.
Rory McIlroy was born in 1989 to parents Gerry and Rosaleen. He grew up as an only child in a modest, semi-detached home in seaside town of Holywood, Co. Down. Aged two, he was given his own plastic golf club but hit balls so hard that the toy broke and his father had to cut down a real golf club to suit his son.
By seven his talent was such that Holywood Golf Club committee changed the membership rules to allow him to become their youngest member.
By 2006, aged 17, he was crowned European amateur champion in Milan.
His parents travelled the world with him and are justifiably proud of their son – as are those at Holywood Golf Club.
But some who know him are not so fulsome in their praise of the golfer who, they say, took fame too seriously at times.
‘He’s got a big ego, he always has,’ says one. ‘He’d barge his way to the front of the queue at nightclubs, demanding VIP treatment.
‘I was in a bar where he was very rude to anyone who approached him, asking for a picture or an autograph.
‘He once pushed past me and spilled my drink and didn’t stop to look back – let alone apologise.
‘His problem with women, I think, is down to thinking he is more famous, and better looking, than he actually is.’
One onlooker who saw the golfer at close quarters in Louisville this week believes that contrary to the perceived wisdom that elite sportspeople require an orderly private life for peak performance, McIlroy seems to thrive on drama. ‘At times of maximum chaos around him, when he’s done or said something controversial, he actually plays better,’ he says.
‘He’s been chirpy and upbeat this week – not walking around looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.’
In Holywood, locals can shed little light on the announcement that has rocked sport.
At the clubhouse of the Holywood Golf Club – where fans can have their photographs taken with a cardboard cut-out of the multi-millionaire golfer – the words most often muttered last week were ‘surprised’ and ‘disappointed’.
A woman at reception would say only: ‘We’re all very proud of him and that doesn’t change.’
Much else in McIlroy’s and Stoll’s lives will alter.
It is believed the pair had a prenup to protect McIlroy’s estimated £200m (€233m) fortune and intend to co-parent their daughter. What their living arrangements will be is not clear, but it is unlikely he will return to the childhood home town where his Bentley parked outside his parents’ home is a sign he is ‘in residence’.
There are many assets to divide – not least a $8.9m (€8.2m) ninebedroom, 10-bathroom mansion in Florida’s exclusive Bear’s Club gated community, founded by golf legend Jack Nicklaus, where basketball star Michael Jordan and tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams are neighbours.
There is also McIlroy’s enviable collection of cars, including a Ferrari F430, a Ferrari F12 and a Lamborghini Aventador.
McIlroy is also understood to own a property in Wentworth, Surrey, the home of European golf, where he and Erica are said to have spent £10m (€11.6m) on renovations. The thinking was that the family would take up fulltime residence there when Poppy was ready for secondary school.
What the future holds for Erica is even less clear.
But perhaps she can take comfort from the fortunes of her husband’s previous two jilted partners.
Holly Sweeney went on to marry hockey player Jeff Mason and now has a 10-year-old son with him. Meanwhile, Caroline Wozniacki went on to marry NBA star David Lee and the couple have two children. She has announced her imminent return to tennis.
There IS life, it seems, after Rory McIlroy.
The poor woman couldn’t win. Anything went wrong, it was her fault