Tommy Fleetwood finally ended his long wait for a PGA Tour title by holding his nerve to clinch the Tour Championship at East Lake on Sunday – a career-defining moment that saw the Southport star pocket $10million and shed the tag of golf’s nearly man.
Fleetwood, 34, arrived in Atlanta with the unwanted distinction of being the player who had earned the most prize money on the PGA Tour without a victory.
That narrative was rewritten when he calmly holed his final putt to secure a three-shot win, prompting an outpouring of emotion as he saluted the crowd and celebrated with friends and team-mates.
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Notably absent from the greenside celebrations, however, was his wife Clare, who has stood alongside him throughout his career both personally and professionally.
Tommy Fleetwood finally ended his long wait for a PGA Tour title by holding his nerve to clinch the Tour Championship at East Lake on Sunday – a career-defining moment that saw the Southport star pocket $10million and shed the tag of golf’s nearly man
|REUTERS
Clare, 57, is 23 years older than her husband and in the past has spoken candidly about the early challenges of their age gap.
“It kind of is and isn’t. I mean it was way more at the beginning,” Clare told the Performance People podcast last year.
“It was kind of not actually for us but it was just again thinking what other people are thinking about all the time and within the industry.
"It was kind of big news in our circle, so I was a little bit paranoid about all that, really. But not for any reason of our relationship, and I had full faith once we fell in love.”
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Fleetwood and Clare met in 2015 through his brother.
Clare was working as his agent before their relationship turned romantic.
The couple married two years later and now live in the United Arab Emirates with their son Frankie, while Clare also has two older children from a previous relationship.
Asked about turning down Fleetwood in the early days, Clare admitted: “We’ve got a 23-year age difference. Of course, I turned him down. I was like, ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
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Tommy Fleetwood pictured with wife Clare Fleetwood
|GETTY
Fleetwood, however, persisted.
He previously said: “Well, she just eventually gave in, I think, and thought, ‘I’ll just give him some time. I’ll give him the time of day and then we’ll go from there.’ I didn’t mess up.”
As well as being his partner, Clare continues to manage Fleetwood’s career, handling everything from sponsorship and PR to logistics and accounts.
“Maybe sometimes too much, you know, because then that’s all I think about sometimes, but that’s just the different dynamic,” she said.
Fleetwood has credited their shared working-class roots for giving their relationship a strong foundation.
“We share a very northern sense of humour,” he told The Times. “We’re both from working-class backgrounds – when you look at our parents they brought us up in a similar fashion, whether it be in terms of kindness or toughness or wanting to be the best you can be.”
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Their son Frankie has also become a minor golfing celebrity himself, charming fans earlier this year during the Masters’ Par-3 contest with a wonderfully earnest interview about “practicing as hard as I can” for his shot off the ninth tee.
For Fleetwood, though, Sunday marked the moment he stepped out of the shadows, finally delivering the PGA Tour win he had chased for so long.