By Flint Wheeler
How’s this for a resume; 2 PGA Championships, a U.S. Open, a British Open, a Vardon Trophy, 2013 PGA Tour Player of the year, and 21 victories worldwide. Oh, and he’s only 25 years old.
Rory McIlroy is crediting his recent golfing wins to dumping his fiancée earlier this year.
The Irish golfer broke up with Danish tennis star Caroline Wozniacki earlier in the year, and told reporters at the PGA Championship it has done wonders for his career.
“I think what happened has been for the better in terms of my golf,” he said. “I’ve put a bit more time into it and it has refocused me. I mean, what else do I have to do now?”
As cruel as his comments may sound to his former fiancée, his game has improved since calling the wedding off. McIlroy won the PGA Championship in Kentucky, taking his career tally to four major titles including this year’s British Open.
The current world No.1, who re-won the title from Adam Scott, says being single has given him more time to focus on his game.
“I go to the golf course, I go to the gym and it’s just my life at the minute,” McIlroy said at the PGA Championship. “I worked pretty hard before but the past couple of months I’ve really just buried myself in my game. It obviously works pretty well, so I am going to keep doing it.”
McIlroy and Wozniacki had been dating since 2011, and the 25-year-old golfer took their relationship to the next level when he proposed to her on New Year’s Eve in Sydney.
Then McIlroy ended the engagement in May this year, a week after the couple had sent out invitations to their planned November wedding.
“The wedding invitations issued at the weekend made me realize that I wasn’t ready,” McIlroy said..
”Obviously, it’s quite a difficult time for Caroline and myself,’’ he said.
”It was mutual and amicable and we both thought it was the best for us, the best for both of us.”
However the 23-year-old tennis star says she was shocked and initially thought McIlroy was joking when he called her to say wedding was off.
“Obviously, it’s always you know, you’re not prepared for something like this, and it came as a bit as a shock,” Wozniacki said in a press conference. She went on to exit the French Open in round one shortly after their split, but since then has gone from the outhouse to penthouse in her career and is the world No. 12 ranked female.
The exes even won sporting titles on the same day after their separation: Wozniacki taking out the Istanbul Cup the same day McIlroy won the British Open.
An Irish newspaper had suggested McIlroy could be dating model Nadia Forde, saying he even missed a practice round of the British Open to visit her in hospital. However, they both denied the rumors, emphasizing they were just friends.
”Rory and Nadia have been in the same group on nights out a couple of times but they are not dating and they won’t be,” a friend of McIlroy’s told the Belfast Telegraph.
”He thinks she is lovely but she’s just not his type, he loves sporty girls. He’s not looking for a girlfriend anyway.”
Forde told the media herself they were just “mutual friends” and nothing more.
The golfing world No. 1 is due in Sydney again this summer, to defend his Australian Open golf title. Savor the flavor Rory, must be nice.
