The Truth About Paige Spiranac

Paige Spiranac is a retired professional golfer whose fame started with her stellar swing, but ascended due to her undeniable sex appeal. Spiranac's social media profile photo's playful placement of golf balls by her bust proves the deliberate combination of cleavage with her athletic-based content. This sporty, sexy melange has undoubtedly helped send Spiranac's Instagram follower numbers north of three million, even exceeding golf legend Tiger Woods.

The nature of Spiranac's success, however, has been questioned by many critics who have felt her fame is founded upon aesthetics over athletics. "With more selfies than birdies, golf shouldn't need Paige Spiranac," an Irish Examiner headline once quipped.

Despite the disapproval, Spiranac actively promotes her mission to make golf more modern, accessible and open-minded. "I think I'm an easy target to hate," Spiranac told The New York Post. "In the beginning I took [the criticism] hard, but it's not important. Some hate is good because it means you are doing something different and it causes a reaction. You can't create change if ­everyone agrees with you." Although her celebrity status is certainly enhanced by the blended promotion of golf alongside her hourglass shape and doll-like features, when it comes to the truth about Spiranac, there is much more than meets the eye.

Throughout Paige Spiranac's adolescence, during which she was home-schooled, she achieved many golf milestones, including an American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) tournament win. According to Golf, this helped her garner scholarship offers, including from Arizona State University, where she played for two years. Never feeling like she fit in though, Spiranac transferred to San Diego State University.

It was there she felt welcomed and supported by peers, as well as coach and former LPGA player Leslie Spalding. "I was blown away by Paige's raw ability," Spalding told Golf. "She worked the ball more than any player I had ever been around. ... She had all the shots. ... Some of the best hands I've ever seen, male or female." As a team captain on the cusp of a professional launch, Spiranac put a tremendous amount of pressure on herself, and by the end of college, she had accumulated some momentous wins, including her all-conference honors at the Mountain West tournament.

Spiranac's college days were also momentous off the golf course. On her "Playing A Round" podcast, Spiranac described how she "got completely destroyed by one punch" when her "psycho" college roommate "decked" her in the eye during a drunken blackout, having mistaken Spiranac for an "ex-boyfriend." It's unclear at which school the incident occurred, but Spirinac later commemorated the occasion by posing the gruesome evidence of the encounter (shown above) on her podcast's Instagram page.

Although Paige Spiranac's 2016 season finished strong with the Cactus Tour win, an invite back to the Dubai tournament, and $8,010 in prize money, Spiranac was fed up with fighting her haters, and was still a far cry from the LPGA tour. "As [Paige and her dad] drove home in a silent car, Dan Spiranac knew his daughter's golf career was over. She would never be one of the greats," reported AZ Central.

Realizing she had more potential online than on the course, Spiranac hired a new agent and decided to start pivoting towards a different path. "Together [she and her agent] filled whiteboards and Post-It notes with her plans to turn a one-year golf run into a long-lasting social media career," AZ Central explained. 

Once again, Spiranac returned to play in Dubai, but similar to her first stint, she became crippled with anxiety, struggled to eat and sleep, and cowered to the critics. "I have a love-hate relationship with golf, and sometimes my confidence can be really fragile," she told Golf. By the time the 2017 season started, Spiranac fully shifted her focus to social media. "I know at the end of the day golf is what I'm passionate about and something I love," she told Colorado Avid Golfer. "But there's more to life, and I always try to keep that in perspective."

Paige Spiranac's athletic prowess and internet influencer power are often overshadowed by her Barbie doll appearance. The way she quickly rose to fame rubs some people the wrong way, and they don't hold back when it comes to talking about it. "Essentially, her looks became the focus, rather than her golf game and talent," wrote an ESPN commentator on Spiranac's viral trick videos and her social media surge after the TotalFratMove.com article. "None of that feels new or innovative in a world where image and perception are everything."

While the concept of feminism is about self-expression, in any way one chooses to do so, but, as ESPN added, others who are more progressive want women in the world of golf to be taken "more seriously." This can be difficult to do when Spiranac's "most popular" question she receives, according to her "Talking Boobs & Bras for Golf // My Most Frequently Asked Questions" vlog entry, pertains to the authenticity of her 34DD breasts, which are real. "My cleavage is always out," she said, adding, "I don't get offended by it when people ask me these questions, because I am aware that I am, like, showing it off in a way."

Though she does not negatively engage with her critics, Spiranac told Golf that she does like to correspond with them, correct professional inaccuracies, or explain her personal feelings and perspective.

Much to the disappointment of her many admirers, Paige Spiranac has been off the market since 2018, when she tied the knot with Steve Tinoco, a former professional baseball player studying to become a personal trainer.

The two met while at Top Golf, where Tinoco was with a bachelor party and Spiranac with her family. Tinoco recognized her, asked for a photo, direct-messaged it to her later, and asked her out. "He took me on a real date, and it was such a refreshing change from Netflix and chill," she told Golf, adding, "He's just a really nice, respectful guy with a good heart. After so many bad relationships I finally met a good one."

Many might question how Tinoco handles having a wife who is such a sex symbol, but Spiranac said Tinoco is very supportive and encouraging, even suggesting she "show a little more cleavage" here and there, she told The New York Post. "I met him at the start of my career, so we have done this entire thing together" she told the outlet, adding, "He is so understanding and knows this is a business for me." 

Scoring a free round of golf pales in comparison to the violation committed by another one of Paige Spiranac's former flames, who showed a group of his friends a privately-shared, partially nude photo she once sent him. The photo spread like wildfire through the group, and eventually made its way online.

"It was horrible. ... I just felt so violated," Spiranac lamented on the appropriately titled "Ex-Posed" episode of her "Playing A Round" podcast. "It was horrible. Just getting these random messages from random people you don't know and they've seen you in such a vulnerable way. It was disgusting."

The worst part, she went on to explain, was having to tell her parents. Not only was she humiliated, but she was filled with constant shame, anxiety, and fear about whether the photo would ever go away, whether others would surface, and what people would think of her. The trauma that ensued from this incident pushed Spiranac nearly to her breaking point.

Regardless of what she is wearing, Paige Spiranac's outfits are an important part of her persona. Known for her skin tight polos and barely there golf skirts, Spiranac disagreed with the LPGA's 2017 dress code policy changes, which sought to limit attire, including "leggings (unless worn under shorts or a skort), joggers, or anything with a plunging neckline," the latter which are some of Spiranac's favorites. She even wrote an editorial for Fortune to address her concerns.

"I respect and understand that golf is enveloped in tradition and that certain rules and regulations must be upheld," Spiranac wrote. "But as both an ambassador for golf and an advocate for the continued progress of women's rights and equality in society, I fear that these new rules are stifling the growth of the women's game."

Spiranac also cited former rules dating back to "the early 1900s," in which female players were told to "refrain from hitting the ball" certain distances due to concerns about the grace of their posture while playing the sport. She drew parallels between these regulations and the dress code limitations, feeling they are just another way to hold back women from being themselves while playing the sport. "The LPGA is perpetrating the outdated stereotypes about the connection between what a woman wears and her morals," Spiranac continued, "as well as insinuating that women do not have control over the perception of their bodies, but rather that they must bend to the every whim of the male gaze."