My mum introduced me to golf when I was 10 years old. Back then, other than my friends Jacob and Carol, no other kids were playing golf in Mombasa, Kenya. Every weekend there was a corporate golf tournament and it was always a handicapped event, so it was serious stuff! Someone was marking your scorecard and you were keeping track of someone else’s score. You signed up to play the event and the draw was done to determine the groupings. You couldn’t chooses who you wanted to play with, it was all done by draw and sometimes the draw was published in the local paper on Friday! As a result, I was drawn every weekend to play with mostly adults. I played in groups that may have had my high school principal (yes that was weird), my family doctor, our dentist etc.

So I had no choice but to learn from an early age how to carry on a conversation with adults over the course of about 4 hours. And let me tell you it’s not always easy to talk to people when they are having a bad game! But, I had no choice, I had to learn the skill and try and focus on my game and keeping their score as well. Golf taught me so many skills as a kid, skills that I have been able to carry into adulthood. That was my motivation to start the Smashing Girls program – to give teenage girls an opportunity by pairing them with professional business mentors who commit to two 9 hole rounds with them. To force them into conversation with adults and to show them that you don’t have to be a perfect golfer to be successful. If you have met the Smashing Girls ambassador Skylar Kew, then you have witnessed first hand the type of kid that the game can produce. If you have teenage girls, sign them up for a Smashing Girls program – we will have one in Guelph and one in Burlington rolling out March / April 2018. If you would like to be a mentor for one of these girls and golf with them, please sign up – and no, you don’t have to be a great golfer to be a mentor- you just need to be a happy golfer!