You wouldn’t think it from a glance at her Instagram but there was once a time when Paige Spiranac was too afraid to post anything on social media.

Before becoming an internet sensation due to her daring photos and videos featuring golf shots in revealing attire, the 31-year-old endured a difficult period of bullying that severely impacted her self-esteem.

Spiranac was stalked and harassed by a group of fellow female students at San Diego State University and the torment forced her to remove any trace of herself from the internet. 

‘After that experience I deleted all my social media,’ Spiranac – who attended both the University of Arizona and SDS and also in 2023 had to file for a restraining order against the same stalker as Olivia Wilde – told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.

‘I finally got it again in my senior year of college and I said “I’m only gonna post golf videos” because who can make fun of a golf video? It turns out a lot of people can.

‘That’s how it started. I was just posting fun golf videos, and it really just turned into this.’

Golf influencer Paige Spiranac has become a force of nature on social media in recent years

She posts golf tutorials and her opinions of the sport online while wearing racy outfits

By ‘this’, Spiranac is talking of her journey from small-time college golfer with dreams of making it as a pro to becoming one of the sport’s most recognized faces.

Since leaving university in 2015, she has grown her online audience to a staggering four million followers on Instagram, almost 500,000 on YouTube and another two million across X and TikTok. Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler can only dream of such numbers.

She has also starred in videos with two-time major champion Bryson DeChambeau and the members of Good Good, two of the biggest names in the YouTube golf community’s invasion of the sport.

This week, however, her authority in analyzing golf is set to reach new levels, as a commentator on the third season of Netflix’s docuseries Full Swing, which dropped on February 25.

‘I started doing this 10 years ago now, and it wasn’t a career path,’ she said, having won once on the developmental Cactus Tour in 2016 but failing to get a full tour card since.

‘So I really had to figure it out,’ she continued, ‘There were a lot of things that I wish I could have done differently, and I just didn’t really know what I was doing.

‘For that to now turn into what it is today, to be one of the originals, to be able to do this is really cool.

‘It’s great to see so many people getting into the game now, the growth, and how many people are just making a living through golf.’

Certainly, it hasn’t always been a smooth journey. Spiranac was met with fierce criticism from the sport’s traditional fanbase early in her career.

The decision to award her a sponsors’ exemption for the Dubai Masters in 2015 led to death threats and saw her subjected to blackmail and harassment.

The criticism focused on her outfits and claims she was not there on sporting merit, but rather as a marketing tool. Changing her wardrobe never crossed her mind.

‘I grew up playing on public golf courses where guys were wearing cut-off jean shorts and tank tops, and I’d wear athletic wear,’ she said.

Spiranac has been on Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube channel, and played with Good Good

Spiranac has been met with plenty of resistance from the stuff and traditional golf community

Spiranac enjoyed success at the collegiate level and had ambitions to turn professional

‘So when I started posting in tank tops and leggings, it blew people’s minds in golf. It was just the most risqué thing that anyone could be doing.

‘That was my first experience of this whole other world to golf. I always knew it’s more of a stuffy sport but it is changing over time.

‘I think that the things that I’m posting, and other golf influencers have been posting, shows the really fun side of golf, which is the community aspect of it, and that’s what we all bond over.’

With golf stuck in the midst of an identity crisis and the battle between the PGA Tour and LIV still raging, it is influencers like Spiranac who are winning the race to reach younger and more engaged audiences.

The viewing figures on Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube videos, for instance, are in a different universe to the size of the audience tuning into his LIV tournaments.

His round with Donald Trump has been watched 13 million times while the president’s granddaughter, Kai, is carving out her own share of the market.

Good Good, a group of friends who film themselves playing rounds and taking on various golf challenges, have over a million subscribers. 

The PGA Tour has, finally, realized the size of the threat and is starting to welcome content creators with open arms. While legends of the game like McIlroy, Woods, Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are all starting to embrace them too.

But is YouTube golf a serious threat to the established order? Spiranac imagines a scenario where everyone could thrive.

‘I think when it comes to those discussions, the people involved are all or nothing,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that it’s either YouTube golf or pro golf, or this or that. I think that we all should work together, and need to work together, because golf is a very niche sport.

‘We need to grow and reach new demographics, and we can do that together. So the conversations of competition and going head to head aren’t going to help anyone.

‘That’s why I keep trying to advocate for pro golfers and media to work together to make this what it could potentially be for golf.’

Woods’s star power has dramatically declined in recent years due to injury problems and a gap has opened up for somebody to become the face of the sport. The problem is, there’s no obvious player to fill that void.

Scheffler has proven he is good enough with a club in hand, but the Texan’s robotic demeanor does not transcend beyond loyal fans who would watch golf anyway. 

McIlroy, meanwhile, has shown a willingness to lead golf in a new direction with the introduction of The Golf League, but even a four-time major winner and one of the biggest names on the circuit cannot compete with Spiranac.

And aside from possibly DeChambeau, the initial ratings from LIV’s new TV deal with Fox suggest there are no obvious candidates on the Saudi-backed offering either, and especially not with the pulling power of Spiranac.

The top 10 male golfers in the world have a combined Instagram following of 8.6m. Spiranac has 4m on her own.

So, is a lack of interesting characters holding the sport back? Spiranac thinks so but explains why players are resistant to opening up, and sharing their lives online.

She’s also forged a modelling career, posing with Olivia Dunne here at a Sports Illustrated event

With golf in a battle to reach new audiences, Spiranac could be the person to bridge the gap

‘I think that in golf, you need to show your personality,’ she said.

‘In different sports where, regardless of your team being good or bad, you’re going to root for your team because you have a bond, whether it’s because you either grew up in that state or you just are connected to it in a certain way.

‘With golfers, you don’t really have that. You have to connect to that person, and so if they’re not showing their personality online, it is harder to connect.

‘But from the professional standpoint, it is also hard to put yourself out there, and especially with golf being such a mental game and having that criticism on top of it is really difficult. 

‘Obviously, they know that they need to put themselves out there, but that also can impact their playing week in and week out and so it’s the right balance.’

For her part, Spiranac seems at peace with the fact that her future in golf is not on the course. And perhaps she is the ideal character to lead the sport into a brave new world.

One thing is for sure. If the college bullies couldn’t silence her, the stuffy golf world doesn’t stand a chance.