Rory McIlroy's problem with women is that 'he thinks he is more famous and better looking than he actually is' and 'wants to be treated like a spoiled teenager'. A harsh verdict from friends of his exes and his hometown

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 Northern Irish golfer's name proudly emblazoned on their backs.

The picture-perfect family delighted the watching crowd as two-year-old 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.

Rory McIlroy with his wife Erica Stoll and daughter Poppy, who are dressed in matching white jumpsuits at the Masters in 2023

Last week 35-year-old Rory McIlroy filed for divorce in Florida from his wife of seven years, saying their marriage was 'irretrievably broken'

McIlroy's estranged wife Erica the day after it emerged he was filing for divorce. She appeared to still be wearing her wedding ring

Just weeks after publicly jettisoning tennis star Caroline Wozniacki in 2014, six months before they were due to marry, McIlroy went on to win the PGA championship

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 tenth 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 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 Tod, 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.'

The golfing legend met his childhood sweetheart Holly Sweeney at his local Holywood Golf Club, just outside Belfast

Victorious Rory McIlroy with his wife Erica Stoll and daughter Poppy after winning the Wells Fargo Championship in 2021

McIlroy split from fiancee and former No 1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki almost exactly a decade earlier

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 £7 million 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 County Mayo, where guests included actor Jamie Dornan, who grew up in the same town as McIlroy, One Direction's Niall Horan and Coldplay musician Chris Martin.

McIlroy and his childhood sweetheart Holly Sweeney at the opening of a bar in Belfast in 2011

The golfer jokes with his wife Erica Stoll on the final day of the Ryder Cup last year

News that the golfer's apparent fairytale marriage has unravelled will have brought back uncomfortable memories for at least two former jilted lovers. They include Caroline Wozniacki (pictured)

Ed Sheeran and Stevie Wonder provided the entertainment and the 200 guests were also treated to falconry displays and clay pigeon shooting at the four-day event, which is thought to have cost around £400,000.

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 Holywood Golf Club, 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 always playing tennis.'

A few months after his split from Wozniacki, McIlroy met Meghan Markle in her pre-Harry days. Romance rumours were sparked after the future Duchess of Sussex 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 insisted she and McIlroy were just friends after her then boyfriend, chef Cory Vitiello, challenged her. 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 the town of Holywood, County 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 the 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 his childhood club. But others in the town 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 who remembers him from his youth. '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 – he's certainly not walking around looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.'

Back in his homeland, 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 –

the words most often muttered last week were 'surprised' and 'disappointed'.

Rory McIlroy, representing Team Europe, and wife Erica attend the Gala Dinner for the 2023 Ryder Cup

When McIlroy and Caroline Wozniacki met, 'he loved that she was as famous as him and understood sport'

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 £200 million 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 £7 million nine-bedroom, ten-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 £10million on renovations. The thinking was that the family would take up full-time 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 ten-year-old son with him. She is a children's gymnastics coach in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile Caroline Wozniacki went on to marry NBA star David Lee and the couple have two children. She has also announced her imminent return to tennis.

There is life, it seems, after Rory McIlroy.