Tillie Claggett has made a substantial impact since arriving to Vanderbilt in the fall of 2022. Now in her second year on West End, her game has improved immensely. Just this year, she has four top-10 performances, double what she had last year. She believes these improvements will make her more prepared to contribute to the teams’ success and reach her long-term goal of playing professional golf.
Claggett spent most of her life growing up in Calgary, Canada. She was introduced to golf through her father, David, who grew up playing the sport competitively and had considered turning pro on the Canadian Tour. Claggett fell in love with golf when she would tag along on the course with her father and pick up lessons here and there.
While Claggett excelled at both golf and swimming during her youth, Claggett chose golf as her primary sport at the age of 13 because it was more fun for her.
“[Golf] is something I’m really passionate about, and [I] knew I wanted to continue it in college throughout most of middle school and high school,” Clagget told The Hustler.
When Claggett was 14, her family relocated to The Woodlands, Texas. Here, Claggett continued to play both sports at the John Cooper School. As a swimmer, Claggett earned six All-Southwest Preparatory Honors, and, for all years eligible, she was also awarded All-SPC honors for golf.
Amidst an impressive high school career, Clagget rose on the junior circuit. Claggett collected seven top-10 American Junior Golf Association, highlighted by a co-medalist title at the 2018 Qualifier for the Insperity Invitational/Patrick Reed AJGA Junior Championship. In the later years of her junior career, Claggett gained momentum. In 2021, she was named the Texas Golf Association Girls’ Invitational Champion, won the 2021 Greenwood Cup and took home a seventh-place finish at the IMG Junior World Championship. In 2022, she qualified for the 73rd U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship and the 122nd U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. Coming into her freshman year at Vanderbilt, Claggett was ranked the No. 4 player out of Texas and the 41st-ranked player in the nation.
During her junior career, Claggett committed to playing collegiate golf at Vanderbilt as soon as the coaching staff could contact her. However, the actual commitment was the fruition of a goal she had set for herself years before. Vanderbilt had always been a front-runner for Claggett, even before she could talk to the coaches.
“[Vanderbilt] was my first choice for a really long time, even back when I was living in Canada,” Claggett said. “I absolutely adore the coaches, on my phone call when I talked to them on June 15th [asking if the coaches would be staying] was one of the only questions I had for them.”
Once on campus, Claggett started to find her footing in a new environment. She was Co-SEC Freshman of the Week on Feb. 8, 2023, and named to the SEC All-Freshman Team.
“I think it was cool to see my game just improve by leaps and bounds when I got to college,” Claggett said. “I was the recruit that coaches saw potential in but they kind of thought I wasn’t realizing my potential, [I started seeing] the results I knew I was capable of.”
Despite her achievements as a freshman, Claggett still had one milestone to attain — a tournament championship as a collegiate player.
“[I was], as my coach calls it, knocking on the door [to get a win],” Claggett said. “Top-10 [finishes] are important when it comes to rankings [and so is] top three. You’re always trying to climb up the leaderboard as much as you can, but winning is learning how to win and knowing that you can do that, especially in a field.”
After countless hours spent with Vanderbilt’s assistant coaches and a change in her technical coach toward the end of the previous year, Claggett knew the skills were there to get her first win. Claggett also met with a sports psychologist to strengthen her mental game on the course.
“My assistant coaches put me in touch with the psychologist that I’ve been working with,” Claggett said. “ [That has] made a world of a difference in my game, in terms of confidence and a mental routine to fall back on [when] on the course. [This routine has] given me a sense of peace.”
So, when the day finally came for Claggett’s first win, it was a culmination of everything she had been working on behind the scenes to get there. On Dec. 31, 2023, Claggett won the Patriot All-America Women’s Invitational, which took place at The Wigwam on the Golf Course located in Litchfield Park, AZ.
Across all three rounds of the tournament, Claggett was under par. She opened the weekend on Friday with a 2-under 68, which was followed by a 1-under 69 on Saturday. Claggett entered the final round of play 3-under par, putting her in a tie for sixth place, six shots behind the leader. Claggett carded nine birdies and a bogey-free round en route to shooting a 9-under 61 on the final day. Her Sunday performance put her at 12-under for the tournament and secured her the win over Melanie Green of the University of South Florida, who finished two shots behind Claggett.
“The fact that I was able to come from behind kind of taught me a lesson about never quitting,” Claggett said. “[It showed me that I’m] always in it. I think that gave me a little bit of confidence moving into the season, there’s always a chance and now I’m able to consider that one of my strengths.”
Since that win at the Patriot All-America Claggett has yet to finish within the top-10 of a tournament, but perhaps these are those bumps on the way to her eventual goal of playing golf professionally. In front of Claggett lies a lot of golf to be played and the time to define her legacy at Vanderbilt.
