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Golf influencer Paige Spiranac was a celebrity guest in the 2022 American Century Championship last summer. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like she’ll be in the field again this year.
Despite being one of the sport’s top personalities, she wasn’t invited back in 2023. This weekend, the former collegiate golfer opened up about not making the cut.
The American Century Championship is a celebrity event held each year to support charity organizations. This year’s official charity will be the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
Last year, we saw former NFL quarterback Tony Romo escape with a playoff win, beating Mark Mulder and Joe Pavelski to take the first-place crown. Finishing in a tie for 24th was Spiranac.
That performance was strong enough to beat competitors like Jerry Rice, Larry Fitzgerald, and Patrick Mahomes. One would think that the showing, combined with her outrageous social media reach, might be enough to land a second consecutive invite.
One would’ve thought wrong.
Paige Spiranac opened up about not receiving a call for this year’s American Century Championship, and the reasoning behind the snub seems ridiculous.
The influencer took to Instagram to vent.
To those asking about her status for the upcoming celebrity tournament, Spiranac responded, “Everyone keeps asking if I’ll be in Tahoe for the celeb tournament this year but unfortunately, I didn’t get invited back. Was told I didn’t give them enough exposure on social media. I guess 4 million impressions wasn’t good enough lol. Anyways bummed to miss it!”
It does seem a bit silly considering her near 1M followers on Twitter and another 3.8M on Instagram. For reference, those Instagram numbers tower over Tiger Woods’ following by about a half-million. They also best No. 1 player in the world Scottie Scheffler’s 7x over.
Maybe it had more to do with how she uses social media, for example this festive 4th of July bikini post, as opposed to her reach. Whatever the reason, it certainly had little to do with her ability to interact with her massive online following.
We’ll see if she’s able to land an invite in 2024.