PGA Tour Entrusts Paige Spiranac With New Role as Poor Form Forces Her Out of Event Against Fellow Creators

The 2024 Creator Classic was a bit of a game-changer for the PGA Tour. The event saw influencers across social media play an intense competitive eight-hole round of golf before the Tour Championship last year. It had nearly 110,000 viewers at one point on YouTube and was also streamed on ESPN+ and Peacock.

“The response from fans and from the content creators themselves has been overwhelming,” PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan had said about the event. Luke Kwon won the first edition beating Wesley Byran, Sean Walsh, and Roger Steele in a thrilling sudden-death playoff. Amongst the participants were Paige Spiranac, Fat Perez from Bob Does Sports, Aimee Cho, Gabby Golf Girl, and many others. Unlike last year where she played on the course, Spiranac will be on the course but in a different capacity this time around.

The golf diva will bring her charm to the broadcast team of the event, and it is something she is really looking forward to. She talked about it on Dan Rapaport’s podcast ‘Dan on Golf.’ “I am really excited. I think it’s going to be an amazing opportunity. It is unlike anything that I have done before, so I am a little bit nervous about that part of it.”Spiranac chose not to play this time around but her memories from last year were very vivid. After all, she had not played competitively in a long time, and that made her slightly on the edge when she was slated to appear at the event. “It was awesome. I hadn’t played a real competitive strokeplay round of golf since I quit playing competitively which was 8 years ago.”

Spiranac, who is also a part of the PGA Tour’s Creator Council, started her professional career on the Cactus Tour in May 2016. She earned a win over the top-ranked amateur in the world Hannah O’Sullivan, her only victory on the Tour. She also competed in the LPGA Qualifying Tournament in August of the same year but failed to earn a card. But she did pocket nearly $8000 in winnings on the Cactus Tour. That was the last year, she played professionally before turning to content creation on social media. So it was understandable that there were some pre-game jitters.

“I was terrified on the first tee. I was shaking,” she revealed. And the nervousness carried over for Spiranac, who stated, “I started out really rocky. I chunked my approach shot. I chunked my putt.” Despite the rough start, Spiranac recovered well. She finished an impressive 9 in a 16-player field, just 4 strokes shy of the leader Wesley Bryan and 3 shy of playoff contention. Now that she is not on the playing field, we would get to see more of her thoughts on the game, something she does in real life as well!

The putt that won The Creator Classic for @LKwonGolf 🏆

(Presented by @CocaCola) pic.twitter.com/pPVKGrKQTL

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 29, 2024

For now, let us see, if not Spiranac, who all are going to be competing in the 2025 Creator Classic, which is happening right before the Players Championship.

Influencers other than Paige Spiranac in the 2025 Creator Classic field
Despite the lack of Spiranac, amongst the players, the lineup is loaded. Roger Steele, George and Wesley Bryan, Gabby Golf Girl, and Fat Perez Sports return from the 2024 edition. New additions include Grant Horvat, Kyle Berkshire, Tisha Alyn, Chris ‘Soly’ Solomon from No Laying Up, and a Barstool Sports representative who will be chosen via qualifier.

The tournament format at TPC Sawgrass is pretty simple. Eight holes of stroke play that begins on the par-4 10 hole and ends on the legendary island-green 17 hole. The top three finishers advance to a sudden-death playoff on the 17 hole. This will be the first of three creator tournaments and will be broadcast on the PGA Tour YouTube channel along with other media platforms.

Who do you think will win this event, now that defending champion Luke Kwon is not on the field?