Paige Spiranac Reveals the Best and Worst of Having 3.7 Million Followers

The golf influencer loves connecting with her audience, but an experience with a stalker has given her pause.

Paige Spiranac attends the 2018 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue launch celebration.Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images

In case you live under a rock, golf influencer Paige Spiranac has built a massively successful brand around her appearance and style, amassing 3.7 million followers on Instagram. Recently, the 29-year-old dished the good, the bad and the in-between of being the world’s most-followed golfer.

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The pros mostly consist of being able to inspire other women and connect with so many people through her platform. Free stuff has also been a nice bonus, she added, noting times in her past when she wasn’t so financially stable.

“I’ve had some amazing interactions with my followers who share stories about how I helped them with their mental health or parents talking about how I got their daughters into golf,” she said. “I played this event in Tahoe which was male-dominated. I was one of only four women playing. There were these two little girls out on the course who I ended up taking a picture with. The next day their grandfather was my walking scorer and said the little girls are dying to play golf now because of that moment. It meant a lot.”

Spiranac travels a ton for work and while she enjoys the opportunity to visit new places, it can sometimes be exhausting. She recognizes that it is such a luxury but “living out of a suitcase and never feeling settled” isn’t ideal.

The worst part about her job, as someone who is constantly opening the door to public scrutiny and inevitable online trolling, is the hate she receives.

“I’m a public figure which means anyone can comment on every aspect of my life, my opinions, my content and my body,” she explained. “I’ve developed some thick skin and spent so much money on therapy to help me cope. I’m used to it now but there are times that it’s pretty intense where it will still get to me.”

Spiranac mentioned that she once was in a scary situation involving a stalker. She has rarely been able to disconnect from her work life as a result and has even had to “beef up” her security team, because she constantly needs to be aware of her surroundings.

“Stalkers, blackmail, lack of privacy,” she lists as cons of life in the limelight. “I went through a stretch this year where I was afraid to leave my house and was quite uncomfortable going in public. I didn’t feel like I could live a normal life anymore. I went to a wedding after a stressful work trip and wanted to let loose. I was pounding some shots and having a great time until I noticed four guys videotaping me and taking pictures.”

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