Ever wonder what being a pro golfer might be like? Netflix reality series Full Swing helps viewers do just that. PGA golfer Rickie Fowler is featured on the show and so, too, is Allison Stokke, Fowler’s wife — and for context, here’s some background on Stokke’s life.
Stokke — now Stokke Fowler — is a successful athlete in her own right. She was born in 1989 in Newport Beach, California, and she attended the University of California, Berkeley. Both in high school and in college, Stokke was a champion record-setting pole vaulter who almost made the U.S. Olympic team in 2012.
At around 18 years old, Stokke was photographed in competition, and the sexualized pictures went viral online. As Stokke told 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.”
In 2018, Stokke also told ESPN that the person pictured felt like someone else, and the attention it received had taken on a life of its own. “It’s like that picture is my alter-ego and 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,” she said.
Today, Stokke continues to model for brands like GoPro and Nike. She retired from competition in 2017.
Stokke married Rickie Fowler in 2019
According to The U.S. Sun, Allison Stokke married six-time PGA tour winning golfer Rickie Fowler in 2019, and the couple had their first child, a daughter named Maya, two years later. These days, Stokke seems focused on being a mom and supporting her husband’s golf career. She was on hand at some of Fowler’s most notable recent victories, such as when Fowler won the Rocket Mortgage Classic in 2023. She has sometimes even caddied for her husband in competition.
After the Rocket Mortgage victory, Fowler told CBS, while holding his daughter Maya, “At the end of the day, getting to hold her, hang with Maya and my wife, yeah, winning’s great, but there’s a lot more to life than that” (via the New York Post).
Though she has stepped back from her own career, Stokke still maintains a strong following on social media, where she posts often about her life. In July, 2023 she shared a picture of herself with Fowler on Instagram, captioned, “Proud of @rickiefowler and the whole team in so many ways and very thankful to have amazing family and friends to do life with.”