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Golfer and social media influencer Paige Spiranac fired back at false rumors that she "did sexual favors" to get an invite to the 2015 Dubai Ladies Masters.
Spiranac, 32, appeared on the Quiet Please! with Mel Reid and Kira Dixon podcast as part of iHeartMedia's Women's Sports Audio Network and addressed her disappointing performance at the tournament, which included shooting rounds of 77 and 79 to miss the cut.
"Yeah, that was the worst moment of my life," Spiranac said. "I'll never forget that."
Spiranac played golf collegiately at San Diego State and went pro in August 2015, at which point she was in the early stages of gaining notoriety as a golf influencer by posting photos in sultry golf outfits, though many believed the prestigious Dubai Ladies Masters was above her level.
“I ended up going viral and this was back when people weren’t going viral all the time and I didn’t know how to handle it and my whole life got flipped upside down. I went from having 500 followers to 100,000 followers,” Spiranac said.
“I got this invite to play an LET (Ladies European Tournament). I had just turned pro, I had never played golf outside the country. And everyone was like, ‘It’s low key, don’t worry about it. No one is going to know if you play well or not.’
“I show up and was doing hours of press, which I wasn’t prepared for. I had no training to do this. And I would say there were a couple of girls who were really supportive and who were nice, but the majority, it was brutal. I would go on the range and girls would just scatter. No one wanted to hit next to me.
“There were constant comments like ‘I did sexual favors to get this invite,’ and I was listening to it — and they would say [it] within earshots of me. It was tough. Not knowing what I was doing, it was my first pro event, it was really difficult. I just wanted to be liked and I played so bad. It was horrendous.”
Spiranac has more than 4 million followers on Instagram, 1.6 million followers on TikTok and 1 million followers on X. Last April, Spiranac revealed that she started tracking her scores again and plans to document her "journey" after reigniting "that passion again."
This story is brought to you by the Women's Sports Audio Network (WSAN). WSAN is the first-ever audio platform dedicated exclusively to women's sports. WSAN celebrates female athletes and gives an in-depth look into their personal experiences in and out of their respective sports. Check out more on the WSAN site.