Professional golfer, Paige Spiranac, is setting the record straight. The athlete was accused of soliciting “sexual favors” in order to get access to the 2015 Dubai Ladies Masters.
Spiranac is known for her sultry golf outfits which partially contributed to her rise in popularity online. The influencer and sports star spoke about how her persona made the 2015 tournament difficult for her.
“It was my first pro event — it was really difficult,” she told Mel Rid and Kira Dixon on a recent episode of their Quiet Please! podcast. “I just wanted to be liked and I played so bad. It was horrendous.”
The golfer added that she could constantly hear the whispers of how they believed she was invited to the tournament not off of good merit or skill but due to offering “sexual favors” to get in the door.
“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 earshot of me. It was tough,” Spiranac continued.
In hindsight, while Spiranac knew the rumors weren’t true she understood why other golfers were upset with her appearance at the tournament.
“You work your a** off, week in and week out, and here comes me and I just walk on in,” she told Rid and Dixon.
She also felt ill-prepared for what the media was expecting of her at the time.
“I show up and was doing hours of press, which I wasn’t prepared for. I had no training to do this.”
What Spiranac believed set the other golfers over the edge was that there was a constant spotlight on her due to her popularity on social media.
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,” she said. “I went from having 500 followers to 100,000 followers.”
Her time at the tournament was cut short after she shot 77 and 79, with both scores below the minimum to continue but the scrunity of some of the players still had a lingering and damaging effect on her.
She added, “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.”
To put things simple, the golfer said that the tournament was “the worst moment of my life.”
“I’ll never forget that,” she added.
In 2018, Spiranac spoke to Sports Illustrated and shared how the tournament brought her to such a low point.
“I was sitting in the bathroom just balling and was like, ‘I don’t want to go through this pain, this feel of helplessness. Being alone. Scared.’”
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