Inside Rory McIlroy’s curious relationship with Brooks Koepka after LIV rebel was accused of ‘mind games’ following Northern Irishman’s divorce
- The two have been active together in the professional golf scene for the past ten years
- The “mind games” started with a social media post from the now LIV golfer
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka appear to be obvious rivals, with the division between the two golfing greats only further explained by Koepka’s social media post on Tuesday of his wife in a bikini, hours after McIlroy’s divorce became public knowledge.
The Northern Irishman filed for divorce from his wife, Erica Stoll, on Monday, three days before the start of the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky.
Minutes after the shocking news of the split was announced, Koepka posted a photo of his wife, Jena Sims, in an animal print bikini to Instagram. McIlroy’s ex-fiancée, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, responded with fire emojis to the “Hot mama” post.
Koepka has been accused of ‘mind games’ ahead of one of the biggest tournaments of the year, with the pair taking different paths to success.
Yet the relationship between McIlroy and Koepka is much more nuanced than that of rivals on course who also have beef from the tires.
McIlroy’s divorce from Erica Stoll was announced Tuesday after seven years of marriage
Koepka posted on Instagram about his bikini-clad wife Jena Sims a few minutes after the news broke
While McIlroy and Koepka could be rivals, the duo has a more complex relationship
McIlroy has remained loyal to the PGA, while Koepka defected to LIV Golf in one of the first big-money moves into the rogue, Saudi-backed league. Both have been chasing big wins on pro tours for more than a decade.
Still, it doesn’t seem like there’s any real drama between the duo outside of their on-course fights.
“Rory’s a good guy,” Koepka countered Golf.com. ‘We’ve had good conversations. We have a good laugh about it because everyone, all the things that happen in golf, sometimes we just need to sit there and laugh. The funny thing is that we do that when no one is around.’
“I think, especially when I first came up, from ’12 to ’16, of course I don’t want to say ‘idolized’, that would be the wrong word. But I looked up to him a little bit,” Koepka continued.
‘At the time he fought his way through the Challenge Tour and DP World Tour and eventually onto the PGA Tour; McIlroy established himself as a multiple-time major champion,” Koepka added.
McIlroy hasn’t said anything negative about Koepka in the public eye either, letting his fierce play on the PGA Tour do the talking for him, but he has expressed his desire to gain the upper hand when it comes to their majors.
“Brooks and I are on four majors each,” McIlroy said in the Full swing series on Netflix last year. “So you don’t really want anyone to pass you by.”
Unfortunately for the Brit, this has proven to be the case: Kopeka took his fifth victory in the PGA Championship last year.
The pair are expected to battle for a PGA Championship victory this weekend in Louisville.