Paige Spiranac and long drive champion Cass Marie first crossed paths as teenagers at the 2007 Junior PGA Championship. Nineteen years later, they finally played a round together.
The two teamed up in a scramble on Spiranac’s YouTube channel for a video titled “Hot Girls Hit Bombs Too feat. Cass Marie,” finishing 4 under par on a course both called tough. Between shots, they talked about failed pro dreams, beverage cart stories, online scammers and dating in the golf content world.
“I played a round with my girl Cass Marie, someone I go way back with to our junior golf days (who also happens to be a long drive champion AND stunning),” Spiranac wrote in the video’s description. “Watching her hit it off the tee is unreal (we’re talking serious power), and once we got talking, things got even more interesting. Golf, gossip, reminiscing, this one has it all.”
On camera, Spiranac welcomed “one of my good friends, the beautiful, the talented Cass Marie.”
“We have a very special episode,” Spiranac said. “Dude, we haven’t actually played golf together, which is crazy. We’ve known each other for such a long time now … But I think we’re actually going to score pretty well because Cass absolutely bombs it.”
“Thanks for having me,” Cass Marie said, before offering a warning. “I’m going to be honest. I kind of have the driver yips right now. So as long as you get us in play, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m the one who talks about the yips and the shanks,” Spiranac said. “We need someone who’s confident here.”
The number to chase was the 8 under par that Spiranac posted with a previous guest, Hannah. “There is a side of me that is very competitive and I want to beat you and Hannah,” Cass Marie said. “What did you guys shoot? Eight under.”
“Yeah, that’s tough,” Spiranac said.
Spiranac changed her usual routine to let her partner swing freely. “Normally I let the guests go first because that’s just a nice thing to do on the channel, but since Cass hits it so long, I think the strategy today is going to be I go first, I try to get us in play, and then I free you up to just bomb it,” she said.
Hitting the fairway, she admitted, “is the hardest part for me. I also am not that good off my driver.”
“I’ve been watching all these episodes. You seem just fine,” Cass Marie said.
“I’m not a good first tee gal,” Spiranac said. “I hate it.”
“Is breakfast ball a thing on this channel?” Cass Marie asked.
“You know, it is my channel,” Spiranac said.
From a full ride to long drive
Cass Marie turned down a college scholarship to turn pro at 18, a choice she now second guesses.
“I had a good junior career, and I ended up turning pro. I peaked too soon, you know,” she said. “Turned pro when I was 18. I had a full ride to the No. 1 Division I golf school and I turned it down, which is, looking back, not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”
She said she quickly learned how hard life was on the mini tours. “Financially it was really difficult,” she said.
“Emotionally,” Spiranac added.
“Emotionally,” Cass Marie said. “I was working full time. Did it on and off for like seven years. And then I spent seven years on a beverage cart after that.”
Long drive came later. “Way down the road I got into long drive kind of just for fun,” she said. “And then my second ever event I finished second and I just got hooked from there. Like the adrenaline of the sport. It’s so different than traditional golf and I kind of liked that.”
She said the format helped her recover from the yips that ended her playing career. “I had the driver yips really bad, and I feel like long drive kind of gave me back control over that because it’s such a different mentality,” she said. “You have six balls to get it in … It’s completely acceptable to hit an awful shot because you’re swinging as hard as you can. So I just really enjoy the different mentality and kind of the high energy of long drive.”
Spiranac compared golf with other sports. “You think about other sports, right? And the positions that get the yips. It’s like free throws, you’ll get the yips. Serving in tennis, you’ll get the yips. Pitching, you get the yips,” she said. “Why is that? Because you’re choosing to pull the trigger. And there’s no instinctual reaction.”
“And that’s every shot in golf. Every single shot,” Cass Marie said.
“And you’re out there by yourself for five hours having to deal with that,” Spiranac said. “It is the hardest sport, I think, mentally, for sure.”
Later in the round, Spiranac asked whether she wished she had gone to college instead.
“I don’t know. Everything works out for a reason,” Cass Marie said. “I’m really happy with what I’m doing and, you know, I don’t know if I had that X factor to make it anyways. But I think that if I did it over again, I probably would have gone. Just to have like four years of free experience is pretty big time, because you can’t replicate that feeling of being under pressure and being in competition.”
Money was part of it. “It was so expensive,” she said. “Turning pro, and I had a sponsor that pulled out after I got full status and I was working full time. And you can’t do both, right?”
Spiranac offered another view. “I always tell people, if you have the ability, it’s almost better to turn pro when you feel like you’re ready to do it,” she said. “We’ve seen so many girls do that and be successful at it. The Korda sisters, I mean, the list goes on and on.”
“If you can afford it,” Cass Marie said.
“If you can afford it,” Spiranac agreed. “The college programs have gotten a lot better, but there was a risk that you would go to college and not have that great of a coach. And it’s really changed since, you know, we were thinking of going to university.”
“You also can make money,” Cass Marie said of today’s college players.
“Which is, I mean, insane,” Spiranac said.
“I’m sure there would have been some benefits to going, but whatever. It worked out,” Cass Marie said.
“Everyone thinks that pro golf is such a glamorous life and you make so much money,” Spiranac said.
“Not exactly,” Cass Marie said. “Who knows? I might have not even enjoyed that grind.”
A headband, a 2007 program and two homeschooled kids
Spiranac still remembers the first time she saw Cass Marie, at her first big tournament.
“My first impression of you was at the Junior PGA. It was my first big tournament and I was so nervous to go and I just remember seeing this beautiful Amazon of a woman,” Spiranac said. “You had this cool headband back then and you hit it a mile and all of the boys were talking about Cassandra.”
“I told you I peaked too early,” Cass Marie said.
“I just remember looking at you and being like, ‘Oh my gosh, this person is the coolest person that I have ever seen in my entire life,’” Spiranac said. “And you almost won that event.”
“Yeah, I think I finished like second or third that year, maybe,” Cass Marie said.
“I feel like you were in a playoff with Lexi Thompson,” Spiranac said.
Cass Marie came prepared. “I’m glad that you brought this up because I’m going to pull this out now,” she said, producing an old player guide from the event.
“Oh no. I think I know exactly what this is and I’m so scared to see it,” Spiranac said.
“I went digging in my old stuff. This is the tournament she was talking about,” Cass Marie said. “There’s me. I look like a baby. I’m 17. … And then over here’s little itty bitty Paige. You were 14, but you look older than me, though.”
“Look at that little dork,” Spiranac said.
The pair laughed at another junior who listed his hobbies as “playing yo yo and other extreme sports.”
“Yo yo is an extreme sport,” one of them joked.
Of a player who was 12 at the time, one said, “And she won the d*** thing.” Spiranac summed up the lineup: “A stacked field.”
The two also share an unusual upbringing. “It might be the most socially awkward, too, because we’re two homeschooled kids,” Spiranac said.
“We are two homeschooled kids,” Cass Marie said. “And homeschool kids got a bad rap, but I think we turned out just fine.”
“I think we turned out all right,” Spiranac said.
The team made birdie on the opening par 5 after a run at eagle, which carries a prize on the series. “We have something very exciting for eagles on this channel brought to you by London Jewelers,” Spiranac said. “We get $1,000 to spend at London Jewelers if we make an eagle.”
“Oh, did I hammer it? I hammered it,” Cass Marie said after her try ran by.
“You know what they say. Never leave an eagle putt short. And I did,” Spiranac said.
Cass Marie holed the birdie putt. “I’m like the streakiest putter on the face of the earth,” she said. “Some days I make everything I look at, where it’s actually comical, and then the next day everything lips out.”
Facing about 220 yards on the next hole, she reached for a club few players carry. “I have a 3 wood and I have a 2 iron that is like, if you miss it by a millimeter, it goes nowhere,” she said. “I hate hybrids. So I went with the driving iron. … It’s just so unforgiving.”
“I can’t even hit my 5 iron. I’m thinking of getting a 9 wood because I hate my long irons so much,” Spiranac said. “You’re over here with a 2 iron.”
“Well, just because I have it doesn’t mean that I should have it,” Cass Marie said.
Spiranac ran through her outfit for the episode’s fit check. “Starting with my shoes, we have Nike. Moving up to my skirt, this is Lululemon. My bodysuit is from CSB. My sunnies are from Warby Parker. My glove is G/Fore,” she said. “And most importantly, the jewels are all London Jewelers.”
Cass Marie kept it simpler: “Nike shoes … and, yeah, Amazon earrings.”
“Well, we’ll make the eagle and then we can deck you out with some London Jewelers,” Spiranac said.
Genetics, glutes and hormones
Asked about her workout split, Cass Marie credited genetics for much of her build.
“Well, I’ve been very lazy lately,” she said. “Bobby loves to tell people that I just have good genetics and I don’t actually work out very often. I just naturally have really big shoulders. So I don’t do shoulders very often, but I usually just do chest, back and legs. But I started really early. I started working out when I was really young.”
“So it’s just been a big part of your life,” Spiranac said.
“Yeah. And I think I was really consistent when I was young, so it’s easier for me to hold on to the muscle mass,” Cass Marie said.
Asked how much came from genetics, hard work and diet, she said, “I eat good but I’ve never counted carbs or anything. I would say genetics is maybe 60% of it. I worked hard for a long time.”
“Everyone has something that is difficult for them to grow, right? Or get to look the way that you want,” she said. “I always had quads.”
“I can’t grow my butt at all because I’m quad dominant,” Spiranac said.
“But you have to learn how to activate it,” Cass Marie said. “That took a while for me to learn, and then I started to see progress. But I was always so quad dominant that any glute exercise, my quads would just take over, and I was like, ‘How are my legs this big and my butt that small?’ But then I figured out, I learned from some people, how to actually activate it. I have to do certain movements before I even start my workout just to get it firing properly, and trust me, there is a way.”
“Everyone keeps saying that. I don’t actually believe that,” Spiranac said.
“All right. Well, is that a challenge?” Cass Marie replied.
The talk turned to how a menstrual cycle affects their golf. “Not to be like a girls have it harder kind of person, but like your cycle,” Spiranac said.
“No one realizes,” Cass Marie said.
“It’s so annoying,” Spiranac said. “I feel like I am the most uncoordinated person for like a week out of the month, like I’ve never played golf before. And I’m also just a raging b****, so it just doesn’t help.”
She said it came up at an event last year. “I think it’s getting worse, too,” Spiranac said. “It’s so funny, at last year’s Internet Invitational, I didn’t say this to anyone, but I was PMSing. … I think I told everyone that just so that they knew that this wasn’t normal behavior. I am not okay. But then you say that and then guys were like, ‘Oh, she’s just hormonal.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I am hormonal. I’m on birth control.’”
“Is it better on birth control though or is it worse, do you think?” Cass Marie asked. “I’ve never been on it, so I don’t … I think what it also has a lot to do with is my ability to maintain muscle mass.”
“Oh, interesting,” Spiranac said. “I feel like there’s certain packs for me that I feel like the dosage is different and I’ll have a stronger reaction to certain packs that I start. It’s about two and a half weeks in and I feel it and I’m like, ‘Oh no, this is going to be a bad one.’ And then there’s certain packs where I’m like totally fine and I felt so normal. It’s the weirdest thing.”
Dating in the content world, and the scammers who follow
Cass Marie is dating Bobby Ray, who also makes golf content. Spiranac asked how the two handle working in the same industry.
“There’s definitely some pros, because I feel like it’s a tough industry to be in, and being in a relationship if someone doesn’t understand,” Cass Marie said. “Things are always so different when you’re there in person, and it’s a lot more work, and everything looks like you’re just partying all the time.”
“I’m sure it can be intimidating for someone outside of the space,” Spiranac said.
“We obviously know all the same people and are kind of working towards the same thing, and it’s fun to go and do a lot of these events together and travel together,” Cass Marie said. “But also at the same time, most of our arguments revolve around content. Cuz I’m so much more conservative than he is.” She said Ray “says what he’s thinking.”
“I feel like you do a good job of separating when it’s time for content and then when it’s time for real life,” Spiranac said.
“Every time I talk to my team or anyone that’s really successful in the space, they want you to share more of your life,” Cass Marie said. “But I also want some of that to be private.”
“It is a tough line to walk, cuz I feel like you do need to kind of be very open and organic and be posting all the time and sharing your life, because people want to have that connection to you,” Spiranac said. “But at the same time, you need some stuff to yourself where you’re not just in your phone all the time.”
The couple met through long drive, but it was not love at first sight.
“I saw him on Instagram and I thought he was a d*****bag, and then I met him and I hung out with him and I was like, oh, he’s silly and doesn’t actually take himself too seriously,” Cass Marie said. “I thought he was going to be, you know, the worst.”
“So it wasn’t love at first sight online,” Spiranac said.
“No, I mean, I thought he was cute, but you know, and I like a strong guy, cuz I’m not exactly petite, so I like the fact that I feel feminine,” Cass Marie said. “I can get as big as I want, I’m still going to be tiny next to him. So that’s kind of nice. But no, I think his personality was just so different in person than I thought it was going to be. He’s just goofy. He’s like a child.”
“That happens all the time,” Spiranac said. “I feel like especially in our industry, you meet people that you’ve seen online and a lot of times they are so drastically different. Sometimes good and sometimes not fun. … There’s been a couple people that I thought I was going to get along with great and there was just no chemistry there. And it’s interesting. I feel like the people who kind of present themselves in more of a d*****baggy way are actually so nice.”
“So nice,” Cass Marie said. “And like the people who get the most hate, like Riggs, for example, he gets so much hate online. I love Riggs so much and it’s like you just meet them and they’re actually so cool.”
They also vouched for a creator named Carter. “Carter is such a sweet person, which we’re kind of letting the secret out here. He’s not actually a d*****bag,” Spiranac said.
“No, he’s not a d*****bag. He’s kind of emotionally tiny,” Cass Marie said. “He’s like a little sweetie kind of person.”
“I know. And everyone just thinks he’s such an a******, and I’m like, he’s not, he’s the best,” Spiranac said. “So it’s fun to see that and actually meet people in person, and then there are some people who are exactly the same. You just never know what you’re going to get with people. … I feel like you’re exactly the same.”
“Really? That’s good. I feel like I don’t show that much personality on my Instagram,” Cass Marie said.
“I would say you’re softer and sweeter than maybe what, cuz you just do a ton of long drive stuff and you’re lifting content, and you’re such a sweetheart,” Spiranac said.
Asked about the best and worst parts of her job, Cass Marie pointed first to her followers.
“I think my favorite thing is the people that I’ve been able to connect with and the community that I have. I have the best people who follow me and support me through good times, bad times. They’re always there,” she said. “And it’s so funny, because you have your real life friends, and I get more support from quote unquote strangers. And it actually made me realize who I needed to surround myself with in my real life, because I’m like, these people who I’ve never met, that I might never meet, are wishing me a happy birthday, and these things that some of my friends didn’t even remember.”
The hardest part, she said, “is definitely the impersonators and the scammers.”
“I think that’s something that has been really frustrating for not just me, but so many people online, but especially girls in golf,” Spiranac said.
“It’s awful,” Cass Marie said.
“We get it the worst,” Spiranac said.
“I can’t even imagine on your level,” Cass Marie said. “And you cannot get them taken down. There’s a Facebook account that has a lot of followers, and I don’t post on Facebook, so this looks like a legitimate account, right? And my mom has friends that think that that’s my actual account. And I’ve seen stuff that’s like lingerie pictures that’s headless, as me. There’s like trying to convince people to convert to Islam, like all sorts of stuff. And they give them money.”
Spiranac said she has heard from fans who were fooled. “I’ve had people send me horrible emails that are so hateful because they got scammed and they thought that it was me,” she said. “And I have to send receipts showing them that we’ve never communicated on Instagram and this is a fake account. And I’ve literally watched them go from so angry to be like, ‘Oh my G*d, I got scammed.’”
Beverage cart payback and a hailstorm at Whistling Straits
Asked for her funniest moment from seven years on a beverage cart, Cass Marie told the story of a golfer who doubted her.
“I used to do videos, I don’t know if you remember way back in the day, I would do the guy filter, and they were all based on true stories,” she said. “But the most satisfying, I think, was this one guy was just being kind of condescending. … One of the guys was like, ‘Are we going to get a birdie shot?’ And the other guys said, ‘Ah, she’s a beverage cart girl and she doesn’t know what a birdie is.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, whatever.’ And then it was just kind of little comments like that.”
“And then the 17th hole at the course that I worked at was a drivable par 4,” she said. “And it was the last time that I saw him on the round. And they were like, ‘Oh, you want to try to hit a shot?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ I picked up his driver and put it on the green. And his face, I kid you not, was like one of the funniest things that I’ve witnessed.”
So how should golfers treat the cart attendant?
“No cheesy pickup lines. They’ve heard them all. Just don’t even try. There’s nothing new that you can say that they haven’t heard,” Cass Marie said. “But just friendly and joking around. I like to tease guys. It’s funny, cuz when I was like a little b****, I’d make so much more money. When I would give people a hard time, and I can talk a little bit, you know, especially if I was kind of in a mood, they love that. … I guess it depends on the girl’s personality, but to me, I kind of like the banter.”
Her favorite course is Whistling Straits, which she has played in very different conditions.
“I always get asked this. It’s so hard. I feel like Whistling Straits probably. I haven’t played a ton of famous golf courses,” she said. “But I really loved it out there and I’ve played it in complete opposite conditions, too. I played it on a perfect day and then I played it on maybe the worst day they’ve ever had out there.”
She described temperatures around 40 degrees, hail, rain and 30 mph wind. “We were just drinking straight whiskey. It was that bad,” she said. “But it was so fun at the same time. I’ll never forget that because of the experience. But the caddie was like, ‘I’ve been out here for 20 years. I’ve never seen a day like this.’ We made it through nine holes. That was it. And then we called it a day.”
Spiranac named two of golf’s most famous tests. “Pine Valley I’ve been able to play, which is so special,” she said. “And then Oakmont is one of my all time favorite courses, too.”
For all her power, Cass Marie said the best part of her game is around the greens.
“Usually chipping, which no one expects,” she said. “I’ve had so many matches, just YouTube matches, whatever, where I don’t hit it that well and I’ll just get up and down from everywhere or almost chip in, like gimme, gimme, gimme, and it drives people nuts. … But I love it, though. I’m never out of the hole. But then on days where I’m not chipping good, it bothers me even more, because that’s the one thing that I can count on. I always say my most toxic relationship is with golf.”
“Oh yeah,” Spiranac said.
“But I love you so much,” Cass Marie said, speaking to the game. “Love me back.”
The pair agreed golf is uniquely hard to force. “That’s the one thing about golf. I feel like football or physical sports, you can will your way into playing well, right? If you have the determination and you get that adrenaline going and that physical thing,” Cass Marie said. “But with golf, the harder you try, the worse you get. You cannot will yourself to play better golf.”
The morning start did not help. “I feel like the ball goes so much shorter in the morning,” one of them said early in the round.
“We’d be like 10 under right now if it was like 5 p.m.,” Cass Marie said. “I love an evening tee time. Little sunset golf is the best.”
“I like an early tee time if I don’t have to get ready before it,” Spiranac said. “If I’m doing filming in the morning, it’s a whole ordeal. But if I can just wake up, roll out of bed and go, I enjoy that. … I didn’t even do eye makeup today, cuz I was like, I can’t be bothered.”
“Well, you can play in sunglasses, which is nice,” Cass Marie said.
A 340 yard drive and a 4 under finish
The team sat at 2 under through four holes after a par on a 112 yard par 3. “Par 3s have been the kryptonite on this channel,” Spiranac said. “So if we can get a birdie here, we’ll be ahead.”
Spiranac was candid about her own game. “While I have you guys here, can we just talk about how bad I’m playing right now? You have good days, you have bad days,” she told viewers. “I feel like on this series, I have usually played pretty well. And today, I’m standing over the ball and there is zero confidence. And we’re going to get it back.”
“I feel like we’re playing better than we’re scoring,” Cass Marie said.
“I agree with that,” Spiranac said. “But we’ve had some longer par 4s, so we’ll be patient. The birdies will come. Maybe an eagle.”
A birdie moved them to 3 under. “We’re making moves now. We found our order. Now we just need the eagle,” Spiranac said.
Spiranac marveled at her partner’s ball striking. “Even the iron shots, I’ll hit a pure iron shot and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good.’ And then I’ll hear you hit it,” she said. “It also just doesn’t leave the flag. The way you strike it reminds me of, like, Brad Dalke, for example. When he hits it, it’s so pure, but it also just is on a string, and when you hit it, that’s what it looks like to me.”
“I feel like you hit it so straight,” Cass Marie said.
“Mine just kind of does this,” Spiranac said. “But when you hit it, it’s like boom. It’s cool to watch.”
The biggest moment came late, when Cass Marie found a fairway with a drive Spiranac estimated at 340 yards. “Smoked. That was sick,” Spiranac said. “It’s like still in the air.”
A group waiting behind them took notice. “There’s three guys back there and Cass just hit and they literally were still looking and jaws were on the ground,” Spiranac said. “They would be less surprised if they saw an alien right in front of them than watching Cass hit that.” She imagined them asking, “Why did she just hit that 340?”
The eagle putt slid by, and the London Jewelers prize went unclaimed. “I thought gravity was going to get the better of that,” Cass Marie said. The birdie took them to 4 under. “I’m hitting them just a smidge too firm for our lines,” Spiranac said.
“I think I’ve stepped in front of the shot tracer on every single drive. I’m sorry. It’s not like I do this for a living,” Spiranac joked.
Cass Marie said she wished she had her competition gear. “I should have brought my long drive setup today. If I knew these holes were going to be so long, I probably should have,” she said. “It’s been a while since I’ve practiced with that, though.”
“That swing probably felt so good to you, right?” Spiranac asked.
“Yeah, that was fine. It’s high. It’s just so high. I get nothing out of it, you know?” Cass Marie said. “I also feel like if I try to hit it lower, I just get more in front. It gets more stuck. So I feel like if I hit up on it, I get more extension.”
They finished 4 under, four shots off the mark set by Spiranac and Hannah.
“It’s not like we broke any records today, but it was a lot of fun,” Spiranac said. “Thank you so much, Cass, for joining the channel. You put on quite the display of ball striking today and good golf. And I did not help you at all, but we still finished at 4 under par, which is not bad, especially on this golf course.”
“This course was tough,” Cass Marie said.
“We wanted some very drivable par 4s, which we did not get. But we still had a fantastic time,” Spiranac said.
She closed by sending viewers to her guest’s accounts. “Give her a follow, especially if you want to get some workout tips, some golf tips,” Spiranac said, “because she is such an interesting and engaging follow.”
