Rory McIlroy has filed for divorce from his wife Erica Stoll after seven years of marriage.
McIlroy filed for divorce in a Florida court on Monday. TMZ first reported the news of their breakup. Irish independent newspaper I confirmed that. The decision came the same week as McIlroy’s last major victory, the PGA Championship at Valhalla in August 2014.
Ironically, in May 2014, McIlroy announced that he had ended his engagement to tennis star Caroline Wozniacki. Interestingly, he did so at his BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, a tournament he subsequently won. McIlroy entered the final round with a seven-stroke lead and shot a 6-under 66 to beat Shane Lowry by one stroke.
Perhaps history will repeat itself this week in Kentucky.
Despite this, McIlroy began dating Stoll a year after breaking up with Wozniacki, and their relationship was kept largely private.
But McIlroy and Stoll famously met several years before they started dating at the 2012 Ryder Cup.
That week, McIlroy mistimed his tee time and nearly forfeited the match for being late. But Stoll, then an employee of the PGA of America, helped the Northern Irishman get to the first tee in time. That year, the Europeans won the Ryder Cup in Medina in dramatic fashion, but it might not have happened without Stoll’s heroics.
And in 2017, McIlroy and Stoll, a native of Rochester, New York, celebrated their marriage in a lavish ceremony in Ireland.
The couple then had a child in 2020.
But Stoll was conspicuously absent from Augusta National last month, when McIlroy was aiming for his 10th consecutive Grand Slam.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.
