of the tournament<\/a> this summer, Spiranac was filmed pressing down the long grass in front of the ball of her playing partner, Malosi Togisala. Although her team ended up losing the $1 million prize, she was accused of improving Togisala\u2019s lie, which is considered a penalty under the rules of golf.<\/p>\nNow, Spiranac is breaking her silence about the incident, which was posted online earlier this month, on her Instagram Story. During a Q&A session, she said Tuesday that while \u201cthere\u2019s not much to say\u201d about what happened, she was \u201cpainfully embarrassed\u201d about patting the grass during the tournament, which she did not realize was a rule violation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never intentionally cheat. In all my years of playing golf, I have never been accused of cheating,\u201d she explained. \u201cThere were so many cameras on me. To blatantly cheat with that many people around, that many cameras around, would be insane. So, I made a mistake. I learned now that it was a rules infraction, and I\u2019ll never do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a subsequent Instagram Story, she said the past week had brought the \u201cworst hate\u201d she\u2019s received in her 10 years in the sport.<\/p>\n
![\"Paige](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2226377555.jpeg\")
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Paige Spiranac says she\u2019s received \u2018worst hate\u2019 in 10 years after she was accused of cheating during Barstool Sports golfing tournament (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking tens of thousands of death threats, people telling me to kill myself,\u201d Spiranac said. \u201cThe most vile, horrendous stuff you could ever say to an individual that\u2019s been in my DMs to the point where we were discussing me having to potentially get a restraining order. I mean, it\u2019s serious stuff. It\u2019s not easy, and it hasn\u2019t been easy.\u201d <\/p>\n
She clarified that she hadn\u2019t talked about the cheating allegations because she \u201cneeded to remove\u201d herself from the backlash for her mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that I really struggle with is wanting to be liked and accepted, and I don\u2019t want anyone to ever dislike me. And I always try to do everything I can to have people like me,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, so, it\u2019s just hard for me as a person with how I process things and then obviously the situation has not been easy either. But, luckily, having a good support system, family around and just trying to stay distracted.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Paige](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/paige-spiranac.png\")
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Paige Spiranac reacts to criticism after being accused of cheating during golf tournament (@ _paige.renee \/ Instagram)<\/p>\n
Spiranac\u2019s team ultimately lost the Internet Invitational in the final round on the 18th hole. The tournament, overseen by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy as rules official, featured 48 golf content creators and was filmed over the summer. Barstool released the six-episode series on YouTube this month.<\/p>\n
During the tournament, Togisala was also accused of using the slope option on his rangefinder, which measures elevation levels on the course to help golfers choose what club to use. While players were allowed to use rangefinders, they were not allowed to use the slope options. <\/p>\n
Togisala addressed the allegations during a recent episode of the Good Good Podcast, explaining that he had the slope option on during the first hole of the Internet International tournament. However, he claimed his group wasn\u2019t told about the no slope rule until after the first hole, which is when he turned the option off. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll die on this hill,\u201d he reiterated. \u201cThe slope was off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-285168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}