Ever since the Masters, pace of play has been a huge point of discussion for those in the golf world. And Paige Spiranac has made her feelings on the matter quite known. The former professional golfer and current social media influencer recently argued that golfers should have 40 seconds to hit their shot and if they don’t do so in the allotted time, they should be penalized.
Spiranac had a full-length explanation on the matter posted to her Twitter page and has drawn several responses. One of them was from PGA Tour golfer Nate Lashley, who seemed to take issue with Spiranac, even though he said that he doesn’t “like slow play at all.”
The problem here is that instead of having a civil argument with Spiranac, Lashley chose to be sexist. He claimed that those tuning in to watch Spiranac’s videos were not doing so because of her golf knowledge.
I don’t like slow play at all but these courses are very difficult and there is a lot on the line. If @PaigeSpiranac would have played professionally at a higher level she would understand but I don’t think most people are watching these videos to see what she has to say.
— Nate. (@NateLashley) April 19, 2023
“I don’t like slow play at all but these courses are very difficult and there is a lot on the line,” Lashley (who has 11 professional wins, but just one on the PGA Tour: the Rocket Mortgage Classic in 2019) tweeted. “If @PaigeSpiranac would have played professionally at a higher level she would understand but I don’t think most people are watching these videos to see what she has to say.”
While that incident happened over a week ago, Spiranac chose to respond to Lashley’s horrible sexist comments on her podcast, which was transcribed by Golf Digest.
“If you take longer than 40 seconds, you should get penalized,” Spiranac said on the most recent episode of her Playing a Round with Paige podcast. It’s in the rule books people. So if you can’t do it, you should be penalized. It’s not that hard to comprehend … And Nate Lashley, he’s a PGA Tour player, he won at the Rocket Mortgage years ago (2019), he tweeted at me and he said ‘I don’t like slow play at all but these courses are very difficult and there’s a lot on the line. If,’ and he tagged me, ‘Paige Spiranac would have played professionally at a higher level she would understand, but I don’t think most people are watching these videos to see what she has to say.’
The next day, Matt Fitzpatrick comes out and he says ‘slow play is ridiculous, they need to do something about it’. They interviewed Patrick Cantlay and he said ‘I’m only slow because no one is doing anything about it’. There have been multiple players on the PGA Tour who have come out and said that this is a serious issue and they need to fix it. So for Nate Lashley to be honestly quite sexist about it and to come after me when this was not that hot of a take, everyone is in agreement that slow play needs to be fixed, so it’s not okay… and Nate Lashley, probably a slow player. He’s probably the problem.”
Spiranac later took to Twitter, saying that she addressed Lashley’s comments on the latest episode of her podcast, which has now caused a stir on social media. She made it clear that while she uses her sex appeal to her advantage, that shouldn’t invalidate her opinion on anything, especially golf-related.
