Does Rickie Fowler have a wife? He is one of the most popular golfers on the PGA Tour. Between his flashy dress, outrageous moustache, and impressive play, people have long been fans of Fowler’s whole persona.
So much so, that it would not come as a surprise if people took their wonderings a bit further… Like beyond the golf course and into his personal life.
Say, for example, to ponder whether Rickie Fowler was actually married?
You may have found yourself wondering that very thing while watching Rickie take part in some of golf’s biggest tournaments.
Well, we’re here to tell you that Rickie Fowler does not have a girlfriend in his life at the moment… But rather, a wife!
It’s professional pole vaulter Allison Stokke. And while she is not uber famous, that name should ring a bell. That’s because she had one of the most infamous and controversial viral runs of all time. Here’s everything you need to know.
Who is Rickie Fowler’s Wife, Allison Stoke?
For those wondering exactly who Rickie Fowler’s wife is, here are the basics.
Her full name is Allison Rebecca Stokke Fowler and she was born March 22, 1989, in Newport Beach, California. She was born to Allan and Cindy Stokke. The Stokkes are what most would consider to be a sports crazed family. Allison’s older brother David was a national level youth gymnast, which inspired her to give the sport a go.
Stokke’s gymnastics experience helped to prepare her for her next, more prominent, sporting endeavor, pole vaulting. She took up the sport while attending Newport Harbor High School. Despite her relative inexperience, Stokke quickly became one of the country’s best young female athletes.
Allison Stokke’s Athletic Career
Before she was the wife of Rickie Fowler, Allison had quite a busy world of her own. Her life in the spotlight started in the track and field world. At one point, she was actually on the short-list of best pole vaulters in her age group throughout the country.
She burst onto scene early in her track career, breaking the American record for a high school freshman. Stokke had a vault of 3.86 m (12 ft 7 3⁄4 in) in 2004. Then, she smashed the high school sophomore record with a 4.11 m (13 ft 5 3⁄4 in) vault in 2005.
Despite breaking her leg while in high school, she managed to win twice at the CIF California State Meet. In her senior year of high school, she ranked second in the national high school rankings with a new best of 4.14 m (13 ft 6 3⁄4 in). But Allison stumbled at the national junior championships that year finishing eighth, a disappointment to her standard.
The Viral Moment that Thrust her into Fame
A lot of today’s celebrities have sought out fame by shamelessly promoting their social media channels. Or by moving and shaking with people that are already in the limelight. Allison Stokke, on the other hand, was unwillingly thrust into the public consciousness.
Images of Stokke competing in New York in early 2007 were taken by a journalist for a Californian track-and-field website. The journalist placed them online.
Unfortunately, the image was then re-posted by sports blog, With Leather. They were remarking on the attractiveness of seventeen-year-old Stokke under the heading, “Pole Vaulting is Sexy, Barely Legal”. It was a headline that’s obviously problematic for a number of reasons.
Stokke could not have been prepared for what followed. The internet exploded in perhaps the creepiest way possible. Some of the behavior is just inexplicable… Like whoever started a tribute website to the 17-year-old Stokke. This troubling individual continued to post images of her competing in the pole vault against her will.
Fame Had its Drawbacks for Rickie Fowler’s Wife
One impostor went as far as to create a fake profile of Stokke on Facebook. Her classmates at Newport Harbor High School started receiving Facebook messages that seemed to be from Stokke. Except it was just a creep impersonating her. They only typed in Southern jargon and listed her interests as only “BOYS!!!!”
A number of internet fan groups popped up and attracted thousands of followers within a few weeks. Her photos had become such an Internet phenomenon that they generated comment pieces nationally. And they were from legitimate publications, too! We’re talking the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
There was even some international coverage. It came from British broadcaster the BBC, Australian daily paper The Sydney Morning Herald, and the German weekly Der Spiegel. Not to mention more than one million internet search engine results.
That’s a lot to process for a girl just trying to make it through her senior year of high school! She explained her frustration to The Washington Post.
“Even if none of it is illegal, it just all feels really demeaning. I worked so hard for pole vaulting and all this other stuff, and it’s almost like that doesn’t matter. Nobody sees that. Nobody really sees me.” She would even refer to the image as somewhat of an “alter ego” while speaking with ESPN in 2016. As Stokke put it, “sometimes I feel like I use it for a positive force, and sometimes I just choose to leave it out there and not engage with it.”
Allison Stokke’s College Career
Fortunately, Stokke did not let these obstacles derail her. She went on to have a very successful life with multiple career ventures. Since her rise to stardom, Allison has started a number of other endeavors. One of them is modeling sportswear for companies such as Nike, Athleta, and Uniqlo.
She also went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she received an athletic scholarship and studied sociology. During her time at Cal, Stokke broke the school’s freshman record with a vault of 4.11 meters. The following year, she finished 8th in the Pac-10 Championship. And she earned her first invitation to the NCAA Women’s Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, where she finished 19th with a vault of 3.90 meters.
As a junior, she earned MPSF and Pac-10 all academic honors. Unfortunately, in her final season at Berkeley, she failed to qualify for the NCAA Championships after an eighth place finish at the Pac-10 Championships. She would, however, earn All-American honors thanks to an eighth place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
After College
After graduating with a degree in sociology, Allison continued to compete in her own way by pursing slightly different kinds of athletic ventures. For example, she began to work with GoPro.
The partnership worked to create a series of videos. The content showed her vaulting heights with the camera attached to her pole. This series not only provided details on the inner workings of the sport she loves. It also advertised GoPro’s camera equipment. In just a few short years these videos have received million and millions of views on YouTube.
Allison had her sights set on the 2012 Olympics in London after graduation, and she even recorded a new personal best with a vault of 4.36 meters that year. That was good enough to rank her 21st in the country. However, when it came time for the Olympic trials, Stokke failed to clear the opening height of 4.25 meters and was left off the U.S. olympic track-and-field team.
After that disappointment, she continued to compete regularly in national level events. Her 2016 best was eighth at the Chula Vista OTC High Performance Meet with a height of 4.15 meters. Also, she improved the following year to 4.27 meters for third at the 2017 Austin Longhorn Invitational. Unfortunately, she was never able to improve upon her no. 21 ranking in the U.S. She would also never compete in an Olympic Games. And while I’m sure she was disappointed by these shortcomings, her pole-vaulting career has given her plenty of opportunities that most track-and-field competitors could only dream of.
How did Allison Stoke Become Rickie Fowler’s wife?
While a lot of today’s celebrity relationships exist as public domain, the details of how Allison Stokke and PGA star Rickie Fowler met are still unclear. And you know what? Good for them. It is healthy to keep a little bit of mystery left in life.
The couple’s first public appearance was well documented. They decided to make things public by posting a photo in April of 2017. The shot was from the Moto GP, a race they attended in Texas.
View this post on Instagram
Although their origin story is unclear, the relationship evolved rather quickly after that first post together. And just over a year later, Fowler popped the question to Allison.
She recounted the story of their engagement to Vogue.
“Rickie, Justin Thomas, and I flew up to Southampton a few days early for the U.S. Open. At the end of the day, we were the only people on one of the beaches, and Rickie asked Justin to take a picture of us. After a couple of photos, I looked over and Rickie was down on one knee with a big smile on his face.”
Rickie and Allison were married at a beautiful ceremony on October 5, 2019.
What Now For the Couple?
It’s been so far, so good for the happy couple. Just a few months after their marriage, Stokke was spotted alongside Rickie at the 2019 Presidents Cup, cheering him on during the USA’s victory. She hasn’t been seen at too many of Rickie’s events since then. But the two can constantly be seen supporting one another on Instagram.
For Allison’s 32nd birthday, Rickie took to Instagram to wish his wife a happy birthday. He posted a throwback pic of the couple on the beach with the following caption:
“Doing life with you is a blast…happy birthday to my wife @allisonstokke (yesterday) you push me to be a better version of myself and I hope I do the same for you…exactly how it should be…I love you!!”
It sounds to me like these two lovebirds are still madly in love. As restrictions begin to open up, hopefully we’ll get to see more of Allison throughout the PGA Tour season.
