According to Palm Beach County, Florida, court documents, Rory McIlroy filed for divorce after seven years of marriage. This is a startling event leading up to the PGA Championship.
After a remarkable encounter at the Ryder Cup in 2012, McIlroy and Erica Stoll started dating two years later and were married in 2017. Poppy, their lone child, was born in September 2020.
The file was submitted on Monday, and TMZ broke the story initially. Documents from the petition for dissolution of marriage were not immediately available.
Thomas Sasser, the same legal representative who defended Tiger Woods during his wife’s 2010 divorce, was identified as Rory McIlroy’s representative.
The communications staff for Ryan McIlroy stated today that a divorce petition had been submitted. They emphasized Rory McIlroy desire to make this trying period as polite and courteous as possible,” according to a statement from Sean O’Flaherty, his manager.
There will be no further comments, he declared.
On Tuesday, Rory McIlroy arrived at Valhalla. It has been ten years since he claimed a major victory, his most recent coming at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla. His news conference before the event was set for this Wednesday.
It was not like the other times that Rory McIlroy and Stoll met. In 2012, when covering the Ryder Cup at Medinah in the Chicago suburbs, she was employed by the PGA of America. Rory McIlroy said he had forgotten he was in the Central time zone, which almost cost him his Sunday singles match.
McIlroy nearly made it in time for the police escort that Stoll had planned to take him to Medinah. As Europe came together to win, he defeated Keegan Bradley in his match.
At the time, McIlroy was dating tennis player Caroline Wozniacki. After a little more than a year, McIlroy unexpectedly called it quits on their engagement.
Later that year, he and Stoll started dating. In 2015, they got engaged.
A day after winning his second consecutive PGA Tour title and his 26th overall, the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina, McIlroy announced his divorce. McIlroy responded, “I’ll probably go home and just sort of reset, then head up to Louisville tomorrow night or Tuesday morning,” when asked if he intended to travel directly to Valhalla on Sunday night.
The announcement of Saudi-funded LIV Golf has caused havoc in the golf world, coinciding with the divorce filing. Over the last two years, McIlroy has played a pivotal role, initially voicing severe criticism of LIV, then subsequently shifting his opinions and advocating for some sort of reconciliation.
After leaving the PGA Tour board in November of last year, he took part in a scheme to reapply by taking Webb Simpson’s place. The other player directors objected to the action. Rather, McIlroy was added to a group that is in talks to become a minority investor with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
