If you’re a golfer and have been online for about 20 seconds, you are likely familiar with Paige Spiranac.
She recently made headlines at the Internet Invitational for both good and bad reasons. Her team reached the finals of the tournament but it ended in heartbreak and controversy as Spiranac appeared to “cheat” (or just be careless) during the match when she matted down some tall grass to allow for a recovery shot. Spiranac recently said it’s the “worst hate” she’s ever received.
This is just the latest sign of Spiranac’s online profile rising. She’s been racking up Instagram followers (more than four million of them), making a cameo in “Happy Gilmore 2” and creating a YouTube channel that is nearing 500,000 subscribers. She has more than one million followers on Twitter, which dwarfs pretty much every golfer outside of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
You could make a compelling argument that she is the best social media solo act golf has witnessed in this modern era of likes, retweets and sponsorships.
Her content is powered by the blindingly obvious: Spiranac is attractive and willing to show it off.
And yet no woman—or man—in her category has built a similarly robust following within the golf space.
What led Spiranac to fame?
The 32-year-old Spiranac was born and raised in Colorado, south of Denver and north of Colorado Springs. Her father played college football at Pittsburgh and her mother was a ballerina.
She came from an athletic family, as her sister Lexie got a track scholarship to Stanford.
Spiranac originally wanted to be a gymnast but had kneecap injuries at a young age, influencing her transition into golf. She was home-schooled for part of her youth, getting to play golf year-round in Arizona and Colorado.
A top college recruit, Spiranac played at the University of Arizona her freshman year before transferring to San Diego State. She had a 76.4 stroke average her junior year and her Aztecs team won the Mountain West title her senior season in 2014. Spiranac had modest success in college but not enough to indicate she could make it in the pros.
In July of 2015, the online bro community “Total Frat Move” randomly singled out Spiranac and posted about her beauty. She immediately gained more than 100,000 Instagram followers in the ensuing 24 hours.
Later that year, Spiranac received an invite to play in a Ladies European Tour event and shot 77-79 to finish 101st out of 107 players—but her budding social media stardom had attracted 500 million impressions and the largest broadcast viewership ever for a LET event.
She won a Cactus Tour event in 2016 but didn’t have the game for the higher echelon of pro golf. By that point, she retired from competitive golf at that level.
Her retirement came with good reason—Spiranac was well on her way to being a social media powerhouse.
Trick-shot videos led to golf advice and a variety of content where Spiranac flaunted her sex appeal for the masses. Naturally, she became a model in addition to a golf content creator.
By 2016, she was on the cover of Golf Digest.
By 2017, she had signed with PXG, 18Birdies and Mizzen+Main. The following year, she was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and published her first Golf Magazine article.
The sponsorships and attention have continued over the years. Spiranac’s physical attributes are front and center in her content. Her podcast—which is called “Playing-A-Round with Paige Renee”—features a photo of her putting golf balls up in front of her, well, you get the picture.
She’s been getting more into the YouTube golf scene over the past couple of years, highlighted by multiple Creator Classic starts and the dramatic Internet Invitational series where Spiranac played a leading role.
Criticism comes with the attention
Spiranac has talked at length about her issues with cyberbullying. Although most comments on her videos are positive, there are plenty of people who want to comment about how she is ruining women’s golf or polluting golf content in general.
Look up any of her Instagram videos and there is bound to be significant hate.
Lost in all of that is how Spiranac is a full-fledged business and media company on her own.
There are plenty of attractive women in golf but only a few of them have made a small dent in the content space. Spiranac has made a canyon-sized crater.
This is a ton of work. She scripts, edits, lights and films videos of herself, by herself. She does her own podcast. She is knee-deep in social media algorithms. She has talent management.
This is not some haphazard effort where an attractive woman gets in front of the camera and the money prints itself. It’s incredibly calculated. It’s a full-time business.
There would be no business without her physical attributes—but there would also be no business without her work ethic and ability to pull on the right strings to influence her audience.
It’s a cliche thing to say but building up that kind of social media empire doesn’t happen easily. It’s a cocktail of personality, beauty and tactical strategy.
Spiranac does have a knack for painting herself as a victim which can be a tough look for someone whose livelihood relies on engagement. To borrow a hockey phrase, you don’t get to the front of the net without expecting to take a few cross checks.
But those clapbacks to internet trolls—with criticism that is justified or not—are part of her brand.
Creating content is a lot more rigorous than people assume. A lot of people try and never get anywhere.
So why is Spiranac famous? Love her, hate her or lust after her, she’s eliciting some kind of reaction.
Top Photo Caption: Paige Spiranac has created a social media empire. (GETTY IMAGES/Roy Rochlin)
Tom S.
6 months ago
I like Paige for a lot of reasons.
But right now, I can only think of two.