Tommy Fleetwood held his nerve on the final day of the Tour Championship on Sunday to secure his long-awaited first win on the PGA Tour.
The Southport-born golfer came into the tournament with the unwanted record of being the player with the most prize money accumulated on the tour without claiming a single victory.
That all changed at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend.
As he sunk his final putt to secure victory and take home a $10million prize pot the 34-year-old was overcome by emotion and was embraced by friends and colleagues.
One figure conspicuous by their absence during the triumphant moment was his wife of eight years, Clare.
Twenty-three years her husband’s senior at 57, Clare candidly admitted in 2023 that public scrutiny surrounding their age gap had initially placed strain on the relationship.
‘It kind of is and isn’t. I mean it was way more at the beginning,’ the 57-year-old told the Performance People podcast.
‘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.’
Fleetwood was first introduced to his now-wife in 2015, through his brother.
Clare initially served as Fleetwood’s agent before the pair began a romantic relationship, and they tied the knot two years later.
The couple, who have lived in the United Arab Emirates since 2022, have a son together called Frankie, while Clare has two older children from a previous relationship.
‘We’ve got a 23-year age difference,’ she said when explaining why she turned him down in the early stages of their romance.
‘Of course, I turned him down. I was like, “Don’t be stupid.”‘
But Fleetwood ultimately won his future wife around with persistence.
He 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.’
Clare continues to manage her husband’s sporting career and says this gives her a full understanding of the man she shares her life with.
‘I know everything on every side – so there’s the sponsorship side, the logistics side, the PR side, the accounts side, everything,’ she elaborated.
‘Maybe sometimes too much, you know, because then that’s all I think about sometimes, but that’s just the different dynamic.
‘I look at one question – it might have 15 answers for me. Do you know what I mean? It’s a little bit more complicated for me because I see things, you know, like, are we going to live?
‘I don’t see it as a lifestyle choice necessarily, I’ll look at it as a business choice as well.’
In an interview with The Times, Fleetwood lifted the lid on their shared working-class backgrounds and the affinity it has given them.
‘We share a very northern sense of humour,’ he said.
‘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.’
Their son, Frankie, won the hearts of golf fans all over the world earlier this year after giving an adorable interview in which he offered an insight into his own pre-Masters training.
Frankie, seven, was among the kids of famous faces to have a run round the traditional Par-3 on the Wednesday before the Masters officially gets underway the following day.
There were some impressive skills on show too from the youngsters, with Rory McIlroy’s daughter, Poppy, sinking a brilliant 20ft putt.
But it was Fleetwood Junior’s exploits off the green that captured the hearts of golf fans, rather than his skills with the putter.
Asked by Sky Sports how regularly he had been practising his upcoming shot off the ninth tee, he gave a the sort of answer you might expect from a media trained veteran of the circuit.
‘Well I’ve been doing my hardest to get it over the green,’ seven-year-old Fleetwood told Sky Sports.
‘I’ve been practising as hard as I can, just not reaching it this year. But I’m just trying my hardest.’
Tommy and Clare aren’t the only sports couple to share a large age gap. NBA legend Steve Nash, 51, shares a 16-year gap with his wife, Lilla Frederick, 35, while baseball hero Derek Jeter, 51, is also 16 years old than his wife Hannah Davies, 35.
But no couple has attracted more attention for their vast age difference than NFL coaching icon Bill Belichick, 73, and his girlfriend, 24.
The pair, who are 49 years apart in age, started dating after meeting on a flight in 2021.
