Fred Couples’s second wife, Thais Baker, and he were no longer together. Baker died in 2009 after a long fight with breast cancer. She left behind two children from a previous marriage: Gigi, who was 18, and Oliver, who was 16. When she died, her son Oliver and Couples were still close, but her daughter Gigi and the golfer did not talk.
Baker got married to Couples in 1998, which was not long after she was told she had the disease. In the end, they broke up in 2005. In 2007, they tried to get back together, but it only worked for six months. Baker’s illness came back in the fall of 2008 and got worse. Even though they lived apart, they never legally broke up. Even though they had been trying to get a divorce for three years, Baker kept living in the couple’s large estate in Santa Barbara, California, until she died.
Couples found out about Baker’s death at the Northern Trust Open, which was only two hours south of their homes. He thought about dropping out, but decided to keep going.
Baker’s death was not the first hard time for Couples. His mother died of cancer when he was 34, and his father died of leukaemia two years later. His first wife also killed herself in 2001.
