When you see Paige Spiranac‘s Instagram, you see a confident woman with a glowing face, carrying dresses that make headlines. Spiranac, in hindsight, has changed how people perceive golf, bringing the fun aspect of it and making it more appealing to a wider segment of online viewers. But what many fail to notice at times is how Spiranac built such a relationship with a sport that once took such a heavy toll on her mental health.
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Taking to Instagram, a platform that has catapulted her success, Spiranac dropped an emotional reel with the words “You look happier” flashed across the screen. A short reply was below that which said, “Thanks, I finally stopped beating myself up about not making it as a pro golfer.” To those who have followed Spiranac for years, they must be aware of her “love-hate” relationship with golf. But to those who aren’t, Spiranac explained it all through a “sappy” caption. She talks about how, from a very early age, she’d wanted to play golf professionally, which she achieved briefly during her college days. But the mental pressure of the game got to her, and she cracked beneath it. “…I felt like a loser and a quitter at the time,” she explains.
That mental voice was in her head for several reasons. Spiranac was born in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, in a family of talented achievers. Her father played football at the University of Pittsburgh and was part of the 1976 national championship team. Her mother, Annette, on the other hand, was a professional ballerina. And if all this wasn’t too much, her sister Lexie was a spectacular athlete who earned a Stanford scholarship. In a household like this, it is understood that the pressure a young Spiranac must have felt to prove her worth.
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And she ran towards it too. She held a dream of becoming an Olympic gymnast, but that was cut short. At the age of 12, a twice-broken kneecap ended that hope. Later on, she chose to be homeschooled, reportedly for reasons such as bullying and anxiety. It was during this time that golf became her outlet, and she thrived quickly. As she grew, her passion for the sport blossomed. She played NCAA Division I golf for the University of Arizona and San Diego State University and helped lead the latter’s team to its first Mountain West Conference Championship in 2015. When she turned pro, she bounced around on mini tours, even notching a win and making the cut at the Scottish Open. But things did not seem to align with her somehow.
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“I played junior golf, college golf, and a year professionally. After that stretch, I mentally couldn’t handle playing golf and especially keeping score. I equated my score to my self-worth. I know it sounds silly, but competitive golf really beat me up emotionally,” Spiranac said once. All this led her to develop a ‘golf-course anxiety’. Her mind took over her, making her feel weak, and she could not overcome those feelings. Golf was addictive to her, but at the same time, poor results made her feel like “the most worthless human being ever.”
And that’s why she decided to take a detour in her career. “I always knew I wasn’t cut out for professional sports and was able to find a path better suited for my personality,” she says in her caption. Today, Spiranac has reinvented herself as a content creator, golf influencer, and mental health advocate. In fact, she has been credited for her role in the growth of the LPGA Tour! She often talks about the pressure of mental health on players, especially young golfers and women. “I love creating, the game of golf, and connecting with you all.”
Paige Spiranac’s fight for mental health awareness
Paige Spiranac has turned her own struggles with anxiety, depression, and relentless cyberbullying into a mission to make golf — and sports in general — a more open place to talk about mental health. Her biggest step came in 2017 when she became an ambassador for the Cybersmile Foundation, a non-profit fighting online abuse. She’s not just a figurehead of this foundation. She’s been hands-on with workshops for kids, promoting 24/7 support programs, and using her massive platform to highlight resources for people dealing with harassment. Cybersmile’s co-founder, Dan Raisbeck, even pointed out how she’s taken all the hate thrown her way and flipped it into something so powerful. “She has endured hatred and abuse aimed at herself and her family and has come through it all with determination to stay focused on her dreams and is keen to encourage others to do the same.”
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Her advocacy doesn’t stop there. With four million followers on Instagram, she’s constantly using this platform to share her perspective and resources on mental health. In 2019, she opened up in a YouTube video about living with anxiety and shared several hotlines and support groups for the viewers. On her podcast, Playing a Round with Paige, she regularly brings up mental health, but she’s also unafraid to call out the performative side of it. “I also noticed that mental health started to almost be a trend where people were talking about it to seem relatable.”
For Paige Spiranac, mental health is not about being trendy or relatable, but about real conversations. And that’s what she has been doing for the past couple of years for her audiences and fans—providing real help, instead of pushing back against the culture of silence in sports.
