Paige Spiranac paved the way for a generation of golf content creators. Now she wants to beat them — on the course.

The game of golf is evolving, and content creators are leading the way. The sport has been making waves on social media, attracting a younger audience through platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

To get their golf fix, young fans are tuning in to watch scrambles on Good Good Golf’s YouTube channel, one-handed trick shots on Snappy Gilmore’s Instagram page, or “Come play with me” videos on TikTok. But none of this would be possible without one of the pioneers of online golf content: Paige Spiranac.

Before Spiranac, 32, paved the way for today’s generation of golf content creators, the Colorado native played collegiately at Arizona and San Diego State. The Aztecs won their first Mountain West Conference championship during her senior year in 2015.

After college, Spiranac knew she wanted to compete at the highest level. In 2015, after she went viral on social media for her golf content and bold outfits, she secured an invitation to compete in the Ladies European Tour. She also competed in an LPGA qualifying tournament but failed to earn a card on the professional circuit.

To Spiranac, that was a blessing in disguise.

» READ MORE: Jason Kelce is crowdsourcing golf advice ahead of playing in the Truist Pro-Am

“After my senior year of college golf, I went viral very unexpectedly,” Spiranac said. “I mean, this was 10 years ago when people just didn’t go viral. It was this new kind of thing that was happening. I didn’t really know what to do or how to handle it, and I wanted to try to play golf professionally. So I was like, ‘Maybe I can leverage this to finance my golf career, because it’s very expensive.’

“That’s really how it started. It was a necessity for me to be able to pursue professional golf. And after that year of playing, I realized that I was just much better suited for digital work and being a content creator and influencer.”

Spiranac faced plenty of challenges in her transition from pro golfer to golf influencer, from dealing with critics online to navigating a world as an influencer that offered no blueprint at the time. Now, she has more than 4 million followers on Instagram alone.

“When I first started doing content creation in the golf space, there was no one who had really done it before me,” said Spiranac, who now has a role alongside Adam Sandler in this summer’s Happy Gilmore sequel. “I really had to pave this path and figure it out as I was going. It’s how to build a brand, how to work with different companies, how to balance, and how to also deal with online criticism.

“At that time, I was playing golf professionally, while also trying to do this. So there were all these new challenges, and there really wasn’t anyone that I could turn to or seek inspiration from or reach out to. So, often I just felt really lonely and isolated, especially when I first came on the scene.”

Thanks to Spiranac, today’s generation of golf content creators no longer needs to worry about feeling alone. The world of golf is flooded with influencers.

In fact, it’s become so popular that the PGA Tour has created an event just for them: the PGA Tour Creator Classic.

» READ MORE: Meet Daisy Foko: Inventor, influencer, podcaster — and the newest Eagles ‘WAG’

The Creator Classic debuted last year. It takes place during the week of traditional PGA Tour events and features popular golf content creators competing in a team format. Following last year’s inaugural event at East Lake in Atlanta, the first event this year was at TPC Sawgrass, where Spiranac served as an on-course commentator. The second will take place Wednesday ahead of the Truist Championship at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.

But this time, Spiranac is ready to compete.

“It’s really cool to see the PGA Tour lean into content creation,” said Spirinac, who also appeared on the latest season of Netflix’s Full Swing. “For the longest time it just felt like two very separate roles. There were golf influencers and content creation and then there was professional golf. They’re both respected in their own ways, but to be able to merge them together and benefit on both sides has been really special.”

This year’s event will include a few returning content creators, such as Good Good Golf’s Brad Dalke and Sean Walsh. There are also new participants, like Sabrina Andolpho from Golf Girl Games, Erik Anders Lang of Random Golf Club, Claire Hogle, Joshua Kelley (a.k.a. HoleIn1TrickShots), and Matt Scharff of Good Good Golf.

» READ MORE: Brandon Graham wants to play more golf now that he’s retired. Why? To talk trash, of course.

“The biggest impact of the Creator Classic, I would say, is the distinct and unique audience that it’s brought to the sport, and really just the franchise itself,” said Tom Jeffs, the PGA Tour’s vice president of media business development. “It’s younger; it’s more social. So the passion that young kids have to go up and meet someone like Garrett Clark from Good Good Golf or Paige Spiranac or Tyler Toney from Dude Perfect, I think caught us by surprise on site.”

When selecting competitors, Jeffs said the PGA was looking for “a group of people that have an appreciation for the sport, have a passion for making content, and have a demonstrated track record of doing both of those.”

Spiranac checks off all of those requirements. This week’s event at the Cricket Club is the second time she will compete in a Creator Classic. Last year at East Lake, Spiranac finished in ninth place in the 16-person field.

Although she plays golf almost every day as a content creator, playing in competition still makes her nervous.

“I‘m obviously very comfortable playing golf and shooting content and it’s a big part of my life, but to play competitive golf is just a completely different animal — and there were so many spectators there,” Spiranac said. “It was an unbelievable experience, but it just again put in perspective how challenging mentally it is to play golf at the highest level. After that first tee shot, I was like, ‘I am so glad I‘m not playing professional golf every week because it truly is a grind, and you don’t realize it until you are on that stage.’”

Spiranac hopes to finish on top of the leaderboard in this year’s event, which features a different format. The competition will include eight golf content creators and four well-known YouTubers who are not necessarily golfers. They will be split into four teams of three, each featuring one YouTuber and two golf creators.

» READ MORE: Full coverage of the Truist Championship

Some of the YouTubers competing are eight-time Call of Duty major champion Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, Toney of Dude Perfect, Josh Richards of the BFFs podcast, and technology influencer Marques Brownlee.

“I think it’s going to be chaotic with the format, which is going to be so much fun if you watch,” Spiranac said. “People want to watch us hit crazy shots and play bad golf and have a lot of fun with it. I think we’re going to see some really wild shots, especially with the format being alternate shot. The next person is going to be left in some pretty wild positions.”

Fans can watch the action on the PGA Tour’s YouTube channel.