Sabrina Andolpho did not pick up a golf club until she was 15, and she did not like it much when she did.
“I hated golf. Genuinely,” Andolpho said. “And my dad forced me to go.”
A decade later, the founder of Golf Girl Games is running what she describes as the first women’s golf group on YouTube. She spent a recent afternoon walking nine holes with Paige Spiranac for the latest installment of Spiranac’s “Hot Birds” series, a round that doubled as a long conversation about scholarships, superstitions, crying on golf courses and the business behind golf media.
The two played a scramble from the forward tees and set a target of 6 under par before teeing off.
“Six under,” Andolpho said when asked what they would shoot. They hit the number exactly, closing with a birdie on the ninth.
A late start and a walk on grind
Andolpho said her interest in the game arrived late and for reasons that had little to do with golf.
“I started seeing all these cute guys out there. I was like, actually, this is a cool sport,” she said. “I just fell in love with it at like 16, and I wanted to play college golf. That was my only goal, and I sucked coming out of high school. Like, I was still shooting like mid 80s.”
She enrolled at Florida Gulf Coast University without a spot on the golf team and practiced daily. “Every day on my golf, ended up becoming good, and then got a full ride to Barry a year later,” she said.
Her assessment of her college career is blunt.
“I was pretty average in college,” Andolpho said. “I wouldn’t say I had any notable golf things, but I was just a decent player. I wasn’t breaking records or doing anything.”
“You just showed up,” Spiranac said.
“I just showed up,” Andolpho said. “I would shoot around 75 every time.”
Spiranac pushed back on the modesty. “That’s good, though. You’re acting like you weren’t.”
“It wasn’t bad, but it was not like I didn’t have any crazy notable achievements,” Andolpho said.
She looks back on the years fondly. “College golf was so fun. I look back and, wow, all we had to do is golf and go to the gym. It was so chill.”
Spiranac came to the game at 13, out of a family of athletes rather than golfers.
“My dad played football, my mom was a ballet dancer,” she said. “My sister ran track and my aunt was a professional tennis player, so tennis was a bigger part.”
Her father took her to the driving range on the theory that the sport suited her temperament. “I had a good personality for golf because I’m a bit more introverted,” Spiranac said. “I fell in love with it right away, and that’s how I got into it.”
Feel over mechanics
Both players said they trust instinct over technique.
“If I get technical, I’m so done,” Andolpho said. “Golf is a sport and you just need to look at your target and swing. If I get too crazy, I just overthink it.”
Spiranac, who coaches occasionally and said she would do it full time under other circumstances, sees the same stiffness in beginners.
“I love golf instruction,” she said. “If I wasn’t doing this, I would be doing golf instruction.”
“A lot of new golfers get so stiff, but then you look at other sports and I’m like, you would never run like this,” Spiranac said. “So why are you standing there like this to hit a golf ball?”
Andolpho said the difference is that golf gives a player too much time to think. “It’s hard because the mind is just so involved in it. You’re just waiting there and you take action.”
“You’re not reacting,” Spiranac said. “But I’m like, loosen up. Be athletic.”
Asked for the one swing thought she relies on when she has to find a fairway, Spiranac described her miss proof driver.
“I choke down slightly, get a little feel like I’m going shorter on my back swing, and then feel like I’m coming into it and getting forward, lead with my hands,” she said. “That is my go to. Don’t miss the fairway drive.”
Quarters, odd numbers and mismatched socks
Superstition came up early.
“How superstitious are you?” Spiranac asked.
“I used to wear different socks in college because I thought that that was a thing. Like unmatching socks,” Andolpho said. “I don’t think I’m that crazy, but that is definitely one of them.”
Spiranac said her own list was longer.
“I had all the superstitions. I’m getting better with it now, but when I was playing competitive golf, I always had to have a quarter to mark my ball. I would never play ones,” she said. “Ones are bad luck. I don’t want to put that out.”
Her habits extend to food and drink. “I don’t drink any water when I play. I’m weird with drinking and eating when I’m playing golf,” Spiranac said. “If I’m wearing a layer and I’m playing well, that layer is staying on till I die.”
Andolpho agreed. “It throws everything off.”
The mental game
The conversation returned repeatedly to the psychology of competitive golf.
“My parents, who didn’t come from golf, they didn’t understand how in golf you could shoot your best round and then the next round you could shoot your worst round,” Spiranac said. “And they were like, what happened? I’m like, I don’t know. It’s so mental.”
Andolpho said the same pressure undid her in tournaments. “I’m very mental. I think my mind totally destroyed me in tournament golf,” she said. “One bad shot, I’m like, you suck.”
She has come to see that as an asset elsewhere. “It’s funny, because that personality was what helped me make my social media, in a sense.”
“I totally agree with that. I have always said that what held me back as a competitive golfer made me better at my job,” Spiranac said. “You may be a little unhinged to do what we do.”
Neither has patience for forced optimism.
“I play better when I talk badly about myself,” Andolpho said.
“Same. I’m actually not a fan of the fake positive stuff,” Spiranac said. “If I hit it bad internally, I don’t believe it. So I’m going to be honest about how I’m feeling over the shot.”
Both admitted to crying on the course.
“I’m a crier. Everyone knows that about me. I love a good cry,” Spiranac said. “But I need the release on the golf course. Something about a good cry after a bad shot feels so good. That’s why I wear glasses sometimes.”
Andolpho said she has calmed down. “I’m a lot more chill now. I used to get so mad.”
“Competitive golf brings the worst out of people,” Spiranac said.
Two career shots
Andolpho has made one albatross, at a tournament in Colorado with her father caddying.
“My dad was on the bag for me and I had to hole out to make it into a playoff. And I was in the trees,” she said. “I threaded it perfectly in between the trees and it holed out, and I ended up going to the playoff and I won.”
“You weren’t even in the fairway,” Spiranac said.
“Wasn’t even in the fairway. I had no shot,” Andolpho said.
Spiranac has one hole in one, made at a tournament in Brazil she nearly skipped.
“I was so broke at that time, because I was just working, and I was like, oh my god, I can’t even afford to go to Brazil right now,” she said. “But I was like, forget it, I’m just going to go. And then I went and then I won the car and then I got money from the car.”
The prize was a new Honda SUV, which she sold locally for close to $30,000.
“Now I’m like, if I don’t get another one, nothing can compete with that one,” Spiranac said. “I never care to get another one, because I want a car.”
Building Golf Girl Games
Andolpho spent a year after college working in sales and posting weekly videos before a business partner reached out.
“Once I graduated college, I was working sales, started posting, and I really wanted to do YouTube because I felt I could show my personality more,” she said. “So for a full year I posted once a week, every week, and I had a business guy reach out to me, George Elliot, my business partner, and we connected.”
The idea took shape over long phone calls.
“There’s no girls groups. There’s so many guys groups and there’s zero girls groups,” Andolpho said. “So what about if we just created a YouTube girls group? And that’s kind of how it started.”
The goal, she said, was tone as much as talent. “I wanted to just showcase really good female golfers, but having fun, and it just being a lot better of an environment.”
Golf Girl Games is roughly two years and 10 months old. When Andolpho hedged about its place in the space, Spiranac cut in.
“Say it with your chest,” Spiranac said. “As women, when we’re confident about things that we’ve done, we often get put in a position where we’re called names, or, why are you cocky? But you did something really cool. You should be proud of it and you should be comfortable saying that.”
“It was the first ever girls group,” Andolpho said. “It was kind of everything I wanted it to be, honestly. And I learned so much about production. I love the behind the scenes stuff and planning all the trips. So much goes into it. It’s insane.”
“Not to be naive”
Asked the biggest lesson of the last three years, Andolpho did not hesitate.
“Not to be naive,” she said. “I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own businesses. This whole journey has taught me how business works, and just really not being naive, having your guard up a little and not being so open. I know that sounds kind of cynical.”
Spiranac said the golf media world looks friendlier from outside than it is.
“It’s very fun and everyone is collaborating, but it’s business at the end of the day,” she said. “It’s also cutthroat. People are out for themselves. You have to protect yourself and what you want, and also still be friends with people.”
Andolpho, who is nearly 27, said her early 20s were a blind spot.
“I didn’t even know what an NDA was when I was 21. I had no idea what any of that was,” she said. “I definitely had the work ethic, but everything that actually goes into business, I was very, very naive about.”
“I was the same way,” Spiranac said. “Unfortunately, you have to learn lessons the hard way sometimes. I signed deals that I shouldn’t have signed. And I worked with people that I shouldn’t have trusted.”
She said she would not undo any of it. “People always ask me, what’s one thing you regret? Looking back, there’s probably a ton of things that I regret, but I would never replace those moments with something different because of all of the lessons that I have learned,” Spiranac said.
That, she said, is the point of the series. “That’s why I really wanted to start this series and almost be a mentor for girls coming up into this, because I’ve been through it. I’ve learned every lesson the hard way. Hopefully I can share some of that experience, because it’s hard.”
Andolpho’s summary was shorter. “You’ve got to lock in and be thick skinned, because you’re going to get thrown curveballs and be tested.”
She credits a spiritual streak for getting her through the low points. “I definitely feel everything happens for a reason. I know I’m strong, and anything I get put through, I know it’s going to be fine,” she said. “In the moment you’re like, oh gosh, this is so annoying. But you get through it and you’re like, I’m a warrior. If you can get through mental battles, you’re chilling.”
Friendships and what comes next
Both said close friendships among women in the sport are hard to build and worth the effort.
“It’s not as easy to find really, really good girlfriends, but when you do find really solid female friendships, they’re actually so good, because you have those super deep talks,” Spiranac said. “A good girlfriend is hard to find, but it’s so great to have when you have one.”
She blamed the environment. “I think it’s hard when you’re in a competitive environment. Through golf, I have met some really great girls, but it’s always hard when you’re competing against them,” Spiranac said. “And now with social media, there’s always the comparison, which is competition, which again makes it harder.”
Andolpho said the difference in how women talk is obvious to her. “I feel girls get so much more deep than guys.”
Spiranac said the series has been a fix for that. “Actually sitting down and talking has been so valuable. We don’t get to do this very often. We see each other and it’s like, hey, how are you, and that’s it.”
Andolpho, who also mentioned a longstanding gym habit when the subject of training came up, said she has been lifting since she got her driver’s license. “I definitely go to the gym a lot,” she said. “I genuinely love leg day.”
Both are scheduled to play in the upcoming Internet Invitational. Spiranac, who has played it before, offered her plan.
“Mind your business and keep your mouth shut. That is my game plan,” she said.
Andolpho, playing it for the first time, said she is bracing for the reaction more than the golf.
“You saw some people literally get canceled,” she said. “So I guess my strategy is, when they come out, I’m probably not going to watch it and I’m probably not going to read the comments.”
“Smart,” Spiranac said.
