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Between a Masters outfit that sparked a wave of criticism in April and a full SI Swimsuit launch week in New York City, Jena Sims still showed up to the PGA Championship final round on Sunday. And she gave her followers a full breakdown of every piece she had on.

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“Final round fit check. It’s Sunday at the PGA, my first day here,” she said in an Instagram Stories video. “I don’t have much gas left in the tank. I barely have a voice, but this is what I’m wearing.”

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The look was a Nike plaid set from her Masters gifting, featuring bubble sleeves and a flip-under bubble hem. She added a Hermès belt to break up the pattern, put on what she called “my nicest diamond necklace,” brushed through her previous night’s hair, and debated between two pairs of sunglasses from her Disc collab before heading out.

Her Thursday outfit at the 2026 Masters drew heavy backlash. The outfit that sparked controversy was a Masters-green Ancora crop top with matching pants, both linked through Revolve, showing her midriff. Many people said it was too revealing and not right for the Masters. She responded to criticism strongly.

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“I can almost guarantee that no one in my comments section has ever been to the Masters. This is my 10th or 11th year. I can assure you that not a single person out there was upset with two to three inches of my midriff showing.”

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Jena Sims first attended Augusta National in 2015, the year she met Brooks Koepka on the seventh hole, and by 2026, she had been to the Masters eleven years in a row. This is exactly why the criticism she faced just weeks earlier stung differently.

It was not the first time she had faced such criticism online. At the Farmers Insurance Open in January 2026, a commenter wrote: “Wow, how can your hubby let you be online like this??” She pinned the comment and replied, “I found one that doesn’t require permission.” In April 2025, critics called her golf photoshoot outfits “tacky” and questioned whether she represented women golfers well.

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Jena Sims is a former Miss Georgia Teen USA; has acted alongside Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, and Jeremy Renner; and made her third consecutive Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appearance in the 2026 issue. She mostly always shares her outfits on social media, and the community she has built simply loves it.

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Sims’s clothing is not the only thing that has turned heads at majors. At the 2026 Masters, watch influencer @itschadalexander identified a rose gold Rolex Day-Date she wore, covered in diamonds with rainbow sapphire hour markers, with a market price shown on screen of $160,000.

Well, Jena Sims is far from the first woman golf has talked about.

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Jena Sims is not the first to be the center of an outfit debate in golf

Paige Spiranac has dealt with this longer than almost anyone. In April 2025, after followers complained about a one-piece outfit she wore at the driving range, she responded sarcastically.

“People are so mad about this outfit. I thought it was one of my more conservative looks.”

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There was a time when she wore a full turtleneck and leggings and still got complaints. At the 2026 Masters, even her green-jacket-themed post drew accusations of disrespecting the tournament traditions. She realized that the problem was never the outfit. It was that she existed visibly in a space some people did not want her in.

Natalie Gulbis ran into the same wall two decades earlier. When she released swimsuit calendars starting in 2004, the USGA briefly banned them from being sold at the U.S. Women’s Open before reversing course. She built a reality show, appeared on The Apprentice, and wore body paint for Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit in 2012, all while playing professionally on the LPGA Tour. Critics argued her modeling undermined her credibility as a competitor, a standard that was never applied to male golfers building brands outside the course.

Gulbis, Spiranac, and now Jena Sims have all faced a version of the same argument, dressed up differently each time.

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Written by

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Vishnupriya Agrawal

1,422 Articles

Vishnupriya Agrawal is a beat reporter at EssentiallySports on the Golf Desk, specializing in breaking news around tour developments, player movement, ranking shifts, and evolving competitive narratives across the PGA and LPGA circuits. She excels at analyzing the ripple effects of major moments, such as headline-grabbing wins or schedule changes, highlighting their impact on player momentum, course strategy, and long-term career trajectories. With a foundation in research-driven writing and a passion for storytelling, Vishnupriya has built a track record of delivering timely and insightful golf coverage. She has also contributed as a freelance sports writer, creating audience-focused content that connects fans to the finer details of the game. Her sharp research abilities and disciplined publishing workflow enable her to craft stories that go beyond the leaderboard, bringing context and clarity to the fast-moving world of professional golf.

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Riya Singhal

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