Tillie Claggett, a high school junior from The Woodlands, allowed her mind to drift a few times during the week of the 2020 Girls Match Play Championship to daydream about what was really at stake. Now that she won the tournament with a 2 & 1 victory over Fort Worth’s Savannah Barber in the Final match at Old American Golf Club on Sept. 6, Claggett can do more than just think about it.
She can plan on it.
With the victory, Claggett earned a spot into the LPGA’s 2020 Volunteers of America Classic, set for Dec. 3-6 right back here at Old American. It’ll be her first time playing in a professional event, and she can’t wait to see how her game stacks up against the best in the world.
“It’s OK to think about what’s on the line,” said Claggett, who attends The John Cooper School and is committed to Vanderbilt. “It’s naïve to say that you can’t think about it. It’s totally impossible to not get ahead of yourself a little bit. But the second I caught my mind wandering, I let myself imagine it for a second and enjoyed that feeling of the possibility. But then I immediately pushed it aside and focused on the next shot.”
The strategy worked. Claggett played a power game all week and especially in the Final match. She routinely drove it 15-20 yards past Barber, who conversely relied on precision to keep pace. Claggett birdied the first hole to take a 1-up lead after she outdrove Barber and stuffed a short iron to 4 feet.
That lead held steady through the first six holes. Claggett, who qualified for the Girls Match Play Championship with a win at the Southern Texas PGA Prestige Tour’s 2020 Mid-Summer Classic, went 2-up when Barber bogeyed the par-4 seventh hole.
Barber struck back quickly, however. She rolled in a 5-foot birdie on the par-4 eighth hole to cut Claggett’s lead in half. Claggett then bogeyed the par-4 ninth hole, which allowed Barber to pull even in the match.
Claggett’s 6-foot birdie on No. 10 pushed her back ahead, 1 up. She went 2 up when Barber bogeyed the par-4 14th hole. Claggett closed out the match with a 4-foot birdie on the par-5 17th.
“I was trying to keep the pressure on as much as I could,” Claggett said. “I think the approach shots are really crucial on this golf course. There were tough pin positions on small greens that I find really difficult to read, personally. So getting myself as close as possible was really critical.”
Claggett won four matches in three days. Her work began early morning on Sept. 4 with a 2-up victory against Grace Jin of San Antonio in the Round of 16. Claggett turned around that afternoon and disposed of San Antonio’s Julia Vollmer, 5 & 3. In her Semifinals match the next day, Claggett birdied the final three holes to rally from a 2-down deficit and defeated Meagan Winans of Richardson, 1 up.
Barber, for her part, provided a stern challenge in the Final match. She hit nine of 12 fairways and 13 of 17 greens.
“I was always fighting; I never gave up,” said Barber, a junior at Spring Creek Academy who earned her spot in the 16-player field with her top-20 ranking in the LJT’s 2020 Player of the Year points race. “I played pretty solid, just hitting greens and fairways and went from there.”
This is the first year for the Girls Match Play Championship. It was created by the Texas Junior Golf Alliance, a joint venture between the Legends Junior Tour, the Northern Texas PGA All-American Tour and the Southern Texas PGA Prestige Tour. Sixteen of the state’s top junior girls earned their way into the single-elimination, match play championship through their junior golf performances in TJGA events.
In order to make this unique event happen, the TJGA partnered with the LPGA, the Volunteers of America and Old American. The result was three days of spirited match play competition, which ended with Claggett punching her ticket into the 2020 VOA Classic.
“The Girls Match Play Championship has been a great success,” LJT Tournament Director Kevin Porter said. “The golf has been superb. The players, caddies and friends and family who attended all complied with our COVID-19 safety protocols. Old American is an awesome, one-of-a-kind test in Dallas-Fort Worth. A lot of people were involved in bringing this championship together, including the NTPGA, STPGA, LPGA and Volunteers of America. The week played out just as we had hoped.”
For more information on the Girls Match Play Championship, click here.