Personal Life
Montgomerie met his first wife Eimear Wilson, from Troon, when he was a good amateur and she was a promotions assistant. She was a 17-year-old law student at Edinburgh University and a spectator at an amateur championship in Nairn, at which Montgomerie destroyed the field. The couple had three children (Olivia, Venetia, and Cameron), and lived in Oxshott, Surrey. In 2002, Eimear gave Montgomerie an ultimatum to choose between golf and marriage, resulting in Montgomerie spending 10 weeks alone before they agreed to try again.
In 2006, the couple finally broke up, with Eimear suing for divorce on grounds of unreasonable behaviour due to his obsession with golf, claiming it left her suffering from anxiety and depression. In 2006, the couple agreed to a clean break divorce settlement of £8 million, in return for Eimear giving up any claim on Colin's future earnings.
Since the divorce, he has had various relationships, including Spanish model Ines Sastre, and a divorced neighbour Jo Baldwin, whom he met on the school run. Their split, he suggested, caused his worst run in his professional career.
In 2007, Montgomerie announced his engagement to Scottish millionairess Gaynor Knowles. The couple wed on 19 April 2008 at Loch Lomond Golf Club. On 8 July 2010, Montgomerie was granted a super injunction by Mr Justice Eady, which came to light when he attended a press conference at the 2010 PGA Championship in Wisconsin.
Montgomerie has been successfully defended twice by celebrity driving solicitor Nick Freeman for traffic infractions and speeding. Montgomerie was acquitted the first time when the policeman who was said to have caught him travelling at 96 mph on the A3 near Esher, Surrey (a 70 mph road) at 12:50 am failed to attend court. Montgomerie's second acquittal saved him from a 56-day ban in November 2008, after Montgomerie was caught driving his Bentley Continental Flying Spur and failing to pay the fine. Freeman revealed that Montgomerie hated flying, and drove 55,000 miles per annum in part to visit his children.
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Famous quotes related to personal life:
“He hadn’t known me fifteen minutes, and yet he was ... ready to talk ... I was still to learn that Munshin, like many people from the capital, could talk openly about his personal life while remaining a dream of espionage in his business operations.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)