Tommy Fleetwood Dating History: Who Dated the Golf Star Before Marrying Clare Craig?
By Ali Hammad November 20, 2025 10:38
Tommy Fleetwood has long been golf’s quiet assassin, the Englishman with the flowing mane and a swing so pure it could make Ben Hogan nod in approval. At 34, he’s notched seven DP World Tour wins, a silver medal in Paris 2024, and finally broke through on the PGA Tour with a wire-to-wire triumph at the 2025 Tour Championship birdieing the 72nd hole to claim the FedEx Cup and its $10 million payday, finishing at 23-under to edge Xander Schauffele by two. His stats scream consistency: a career scoring average of 69.82, 1,456 birdies in 189 PGA Tour starts, and a strokes-gained approach ranking that’s hovered in the top 10 since 2017. But for all the tee shots that kiss the pin, Fleetwood’s real hole-in-one came off the course: a love story born in boardrooms, tested by a 23-year age gap, and sealed on a Bahamian beach.
Unlike the tabloid-fueled romances of his peers think Rory McIlroy’s whirlwind with Erica Stoll or Justin Thomas’s low-key bliss with Jillian Fleetwood’s romantic ledger is refreshingly sparse. No parade of supermodels, no Vegas flings splashed across Page Six. In fact, sources close to the Southport native insist there’s little to chronicle before Clare Craig entered the picture in 2015. “Tommy’s always been a homebody,” his longtime caddie Ian Finnis told Golf Digest in 2023. “Junior golf, uni at Staffordshire, grinding the Alps Tour that was his world. Girls? Not a priority when you’re chasing cuts in pro-ams for £500.”
Fleetwood’s early years read like a pro-am scorecard: solid, unflashy, zero bogeys in the gossip column. Born in 1991, he honed his game at Southport & Ainsdale Golf Club, turning pro at 20 in 2010 after a stellar amateur run England captain at the 2010 Palmer Cup, where he went 3-1-1, and a world ranking that peaked at No. 2. But whispers of pre-Clare romances? Faint at best. A 2014 Golf Monthly profile hinted at a brief university-era fling with a fellow Staffordshire student unnamed, unconfirmed, over before it trended on Twitter. “I was awkward, all elbows and irons,” Fleetwood joked in a 2022 Fore Play podcast episode. “Dating? I’d rather face a crosswind on the last at Royal Birkdale.” By 2013, as he clawed up the Challenge Tour (two wins, including the 2013 Open de Bretagne), any sparks were gym-side casuals or tournament-town one-offs, per insiders nothing that lingered past the leaderboard.
The Alps Tour in 2010-11 offered fleeting tales: a Italian model spotted with him post-Bergamo Open win, a French hospitality worker during his 2011 Telenet Trophy T4. But Fleetwood, ever the stoic, never confirmed. “Back then, it was survival mode,” he said after his 2017 Race to Dubai breakthrough. “Relationships? Too much carryover from the rough.” His first real Euro Tour splash the 2017 HNA Open de France victory, where he shot a course-record 61 came sans steady partner. No red-carpet arm candy at the DP World Tour Championship that year, just mates and his brother Joe.
Enter Clare Craig in 2015, the plot twist that turned Fleetwood’s fairway solo into a twosome. Then 47 and vice president of Europe for Hambric Sports Management, Clare had built a rep repping Euro Tour talents, her Manchester roots fueling a no-nonsense hustle. She’d known Joe Fleetwood Tommy’s brother and a former pro turned exec for years. When Tommy switched agencies that spring, seeking a fresh start after a middling 2014 (world ranking 591), Clare became his point person. “My brother at Hambric is a big plus, but I get on well with Clare too,” he blogged for Golf Monthly, a line that now reads like foreshadowing.
The chemistry ignited fast too fast for Clare. “We’ve got a 23-year age difference. Of course, I turned him down. I was like, ‘Don’t be stupid,’” she recalled on the 2023 Performance People podcast, laughing off the memory. Tommy, 24 and fresh off a T12 at the 2015 Turkish Airlines Open, persisted with quiet charm. “He’s persistent, but not pushy,” Clare told Men’s Journal in 2024. “We talked boundaries work first. But within months, it was undeniable.” By summer, they were dating, blending boardroom strategy with beach walks. Clare, post-divorce from ex-husband Andy Craig (with whom she shares sons Oscar, 17, and Murray “Mo,” 16), hesitated on the dual role. “I thought about stepping down,” she admitted. “But six months in, it clicked: I’m the best for him, personally and professionally.”
Their timeline accelerated like a downhill par-5. In July 2017, amid Tommy’s breakout season three Euro Tour wins, including that 61 in Paris they announced their engagement. September brought Franklin “Frankie” Fleetwood, born just as Tommy defended his French Open title (T5 finish). “Clare’s my rock through it all,” he said post-birth, eyes misty. December 2017: a barefoot beach wedding in the Bahamas, 30 guests strong, timed post-Hero World Challenge (where he tied for fifth). “If we got into the tournament, it’d be perfect,” Tommy quipped to The Times. Best man? Finnis, who roasted the groom for “finally sinking a putt in love.”
The blended family clicked instantly. Tommy embraced stepdad duties with Oscar and Mo both golf nuts; Oscar’s 2024 UAE Challenge debut saw Tommy caddying, viral video of dad-son fist-pumps racking 2 million views. Mo snagged the 2021 Dubai Moonlight Classic at 12; Tommy posted: “Nobody works harder than this boy!” Frankie, now 8, tags along for Par-3 Contests at Augusta, where the Fleetwoods have made annual cameos since 2019. “When the five of us are together, that’s our safe space,” Tommy told Fore Play in 2025. “I don’t think of them as steps we’re just us.”
The age gap? Fuel for early side-eyes, but the Fleetwoods own it. “We’re pioneers,” Clare said in a 2025 Sunday Times profile, noting it’s “more common now, but we’ll always be early adopters.” Tommy shrugs it off: “She looks young, I look old sun damage. She’s clever, judges situations better than I do.” Publicly, they’ve shielded the scrutiny; Clare skipped the 2025 Tour Championship green jacket ceremony, watching from Dubai to dodge “paranoid” stares. “I felt the eyes,” she confessed. “But love isn’t a scorecard.”
Professionally, Clare’s touch is gold: steering Tommy to a No. 10 world ranking peak in 2018, Ryder Cup heroics (4-1-0 in 2018, including a 4&3 rout with Molinari), and that elusive PGA win. “Nobody I trust more,” he said post-FedEx Cup, hoisting the trophy with a nod skyward to her. As the 2025 Ryder Cup looms at Bethpage Black, where Europe eyes revenge, Fleetwood’s arsenal is complete: silky irons (No. 3 in SG: Approach last season), family caddie crew, and a partner who’s both compass and coach.
In golf’s grind, where majors mock the masses (Fleetwood’s 0-for-30, seven top-5s), Tommy’s real victory is the one that doesn’t fade: a love defying odds, age, and Augusta pines. “Clare’s not just my wife she’s my edge,” he said after Paris silver. On the fairway of life, that’s the sweetest birdie.
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