Rory McIlroy fighting with PGA Tour ace who has wife with 23-year age gap for £2.6m prize

Tommy Fleetwood is seeking his first PGA Tour title at the Travelers Championship this week – and could take home an incredible £2.6m if he emerges victorious

Tommy Fleetwood could pocket a cool £2.6million at this weekend’s Travelers Championship if he secures his first-ever win on the PGA Tour.

Despite being a professional for 15 years, the 34-year-old has yet to taste victory on the Tour. However, that could all change this Sunday if Fleetwood can build on his impressive start at TPC River Highlands.

Currently, Fleetwood is sitting comfortably at T7 after the opening round of the Travelers, boasting an impressive score of four-under-par. To put it into perspective, he’s just two strokes behind career Grand Slam winner Rory McIlroy, who is T3 at six-under.

With only four shots separating him from joint-leaders Austin Eckroat and Scottie Scheffler, Fleetwood might find himself in a thrilling contest to clinch the Travelers by the end of play on Sunday. The Southport-born golfer has already notched up four top 10 finishes in 2025 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, the Truist Championship, the RBC Heritage and the Genesis Invitational, suggesting a win might be just around the corner.

However, he’ll have to overcome stiff competition at the Travelers, especially considering the recent successes of McIlroy and Scheffler, reports Wales Online. McIlroy added the much-coveted Masters title to his trophy cabinet in April, becoming only the sixth man in history to win all four major championships.

He also has two wins on the PGA Tour under his belt this year. However, McIlroy’s form has seen a slight dip recently, with a T47 finish at the PGA Championship, missing the cut entirely at the Canadian Open and securing a T19 position at last weekend’s US Open.

World No. 1 Scheffler, on the other hand, clinched the PGA Championship in May before adding another victory to his tally at the Memorial earlier this month – making him the one to watch this weekend. If Fleetwood manages to outperform the tough competition, he will receive a substantial £2.6m prize for winning the title at the Travelers – adding to his impressive £21.7m career earnings on the PGA Tour so far.

It’s evident that Fleetwood’s wife of eight years, Clare, will be rooting for the Brit this weekend as he aims for his first win on the Tour. Fleetwood and Clare first crossed paths in 2015 when the golfer switched to Hambric Sports Management, immediately hitting it off before a romantic relationship blossomed away from the greens and fairways – despite Clare’s initial reservations given she is 23 years his senior and also his manager.

The pair eventually started dating before tying the knot in 2017, and have been blissfully married ever since. It comes after McIlroy appears to have had a change of heart at the Travelers this week.

The 36-year-old faced a barrage of criticism after his behaviour at the US Open, where he was seen tossing his club and wrecking a tee-box marker as Oakmont Country Club’s challenging course got the better of him. On top of that, McIlroy deliberately avoided the press during the initial rounds, while insisting that he had “earned the right” to be selective with his interactions with journalists.

Nonetheless, McIlroy has displayed a buoyant attitude this week, sharing with the media after his first round: “Yeah, it was good. I said yesterday, this is a nice tonic compared to last week in terms of it’s a slightly more benign golf course and the penalty for missing isn’t quite as severe.

“You can give yourself plenty of chances for birdies, which Keegan [Bradley] and I did today. Yeah, overall it was a good start to the tournament, and I think when you’re in a two-ball like that and we can sort of feed off one another a little bit, too, that’s nice, as well.”