Sports
5 Things To Know About Tommy Fleetwood’s Wife Clare Amid Spotlight on 23-Year Age Gap
After 163 previous tries, English golfer Tommy Fleetwood finally secured his first PGA title, winning the Tour Championship at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club on Sunday, August 24.
But as the 34-year-old athlete was presented the FedEx Cup — and the $10 million prize that comes with it — his much-older wife, Clare, 57, wasn’t there to celebrate, even though Tommy has credited her with his success.
“I tell my kids all the time the biggest life skill you can have is finding a great woman,” Tommy, who’s now ranked sixth in the world, told The Times in 2023. “And I did manage that.”
Those around him weren’t always as supportive of the romance. Clare has admitted that many people in the golfing world initially scrutinized their 23-year age gap.
So who is the woman behind the champion?
She’s More Than Two Decades Years Older
“We’ve got a 23-year age difference,” Clare, 57, said on a 2023 episode of the Performance People podcast of why she initially didn’t want to date Tommy, 34. “Of course I turned him down. I was like, ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
The age gap was “big news in our circle, so I was a little bit paranoid” about what “other people were thinking all the time,” she said.
“But once we fell in love, that’s it. We were in. People saw us and knew it meant something,” Clare continued.
“And then it was just navigating through the gossip, basically. And the people who were the doubters have redeemed themselves and admitted they doubted wrongly.”
She Met Tommy Through His Brother
Clare, née Craig, worked as a Vice President for Hambric Sports Management’s Europe division alongside with Tommy’s brother, Joe. The pair met “on the tour” in 2015, Tommy told The Times.
She became his agent first, but they fell in love within a few months. They married in the Bahamas in December 2017.
She Has Three Sons
Clare has two sons from her first marriage to Andy Craig. Oscar, 18, was seen celebrating with Tommy in Atlanta.
Oscar is also a golfer, and his stepdad served as his caddy when he competed on the Challenge Tour in 2024. “Obviously it helps experience-wise as he knows what he is doing. It also helps calm me down because he’s been through it all before,” Oscar told Tee Talk UAE.
Murray Craig, 16, is also a golfer, and won the Dubai Moonlight Classic in 2021. On Instagram, Tommy called it “a very proud moment!”
Clare and Tommy welcomed their third son, Franklin, on September 28, 2017. “Fiancé, best friend, Agent, mother of my son, my hero!” Tommy, who skipped the British Masters to be there for the birth, wrote on X.
She’s Still His Agent
When they first got together, they wanted to keep their professional and personal lives separate, but Tommy couldn’t find another agent that he could “trust as much,” he told The Times.
“Clare is a very, very, very good agent,” the 2024 Olympic silver medalist said, so they decided to keep things status quo. “It’s just always worked perfectly.”
She’s No “WAG”
When he was told that one commentator nicknamed her “the WAG who controls the swag” Tommy told The Times, “Oh, I don’t think she’d like to be called a WAG much. Clare does much more than me, she’s a very, very busy woman.”
“Both of us absolutely love working — we’d far rather be busy than not busy. [She’s] very, very smart and clued-up.”
And the prize money is the least of her concerns. “It won’t change our life,” Clare told the podcast.
