Golf's glamor girl Paige Spiranac has become one of the biggest and most influential names in the sport without ever playing on the women's top professional circuit, the LPGA Tour. 

One of the most polarizing figures in the sport, like her or loathe her, it's undeniable that the American has made her mark, taking social media by storm in her tiny, tight-fit skirts and low-cut tops. 

Rivaling Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in social media popularity, the 29-year-old posts glamorous photos on the golf course and has racked up 3.7 million Instagram followers, earning herself the title of 'world's sexiest woman'.

Spiranac also uses her growing platform to wade in on golf's hottest topics, from the controversial Saudi-backed LIV Tour to dress codes. 

Spiranac turned to influencing in 2016 when her attempts to break onto the professional circuit failed, so how did she go from LPGA dropout to social media siren? 

She has said that her father is responsible for getting her into golf after making the difficult decision to quit gymnastics at the age of 12 and a flirtation with tennis.

'From the first golf ball I ever hit, I dedicated everything I had to being a pro golfer,' Spiranac said.

'I was homeschooled. I practiced every single day, morning until night. It was my only goal. I was a highly ranked junior golfer and then at 18 I had to make the decision to go to college or turn pro.'

Along with the help of her family, she made the decision to take the college route to get experience playing on a team after having been homeschooled. 

She went on to play Division 1 college golf at both the University of Arizona and San Diego State, leading the Aztecs to their first-ever Mountain West Conference Championship in her senior year in 2015. 

During the summer before her last semester at San Diego State, Spiranac decided to continue playing golf and pursue a pro career but it came sooner than she planned when her 'whole life flipped upside down.' 

She became famous when the website Total Frat Move wrote a post titled 'The Whole World is About to Fall in Love With Paige Renee, This Smokeshow Golfer From SDSU [San Diego State University].' She gained more than 50,000 followers in a matter of hours, according to ESPN. 

She blew up on social media and didn't return to finish her last semester of college, never receiving her degree, despite being just two credits short. 

Her overnight rise to fame garnered her an endorsement deal with equipment giant Callaway Golf and a sponsor's invite to the Ladies European Tour's Omega Dubai Ladies Masters, where she made her professional debut. 

She then burst onto the scene in 2016 and picked up her first tour win on the women's developmental Cactus Tour in Queen Creek, Arizona, at the Las Colinas club.

She ended the season with a few more high-placed finishes and pocketed $8,000 - a far cry from what she banks through social media nowadays. 

But her professional golf career never really took off, making just one attempt to get her card to play on the LPGA Tour in her first Qualifying Tournament in August 2016 but ultimately not making it to the professional circuit. 

In 2022, discussing Marshall football's upset of Notre Dame, she joked, 'Notre Dame is as bad as I was playing professional golf'.

All of these things, and I was already dealing with these mental issues of years and years and years of trying so hard and coming up short and I just broke. I honestly cracked. I broke and I just stopped. I said "maybe I'll go back," and I've never gone back to try and play golf professionally again.

'No one ever looks at the person I am or the good work that I do.'

 

'I never felt like anyone was helping me or even wanted me there because of my brand and how I built my business,' she has said on her YouTube channel. 'That rubbed people the wrong way.

'I understand and I get it. I can see why a lot of the women weren't big fans of me because I didn't have any accomplishments or wins and I was the one who was getting the sponsorship deals.'

But, perhaps they're not jealous but merely frustrated. Since its founding in 1950, Golf Digest has had 23 issues with women on the cover. Nine of those shared the cover with other male pros, and three had non-professionals on them (including TV personality Holly Sonders, model Kate Upton and social media starlet Paulina Gretzky). Eleven female professional golfers have had their own cover.

Spiranac even said she didn't deserve the cover and tweeted to then No. 1 golfer Lydia Ko that she hopes she gets the cover she deserves.