Aotearoa's wāhine Māori golf champion knows that hahaupōro isn't for everyone, but that hasn't dampened Mia Scrimgeour's drive to succeed in the perfect game.
Now, the 18-year-old is off to the United States on a four-year scholarship to play the sport she loves at Missouri State University.
"If someone tells me I can't do it, I'm like, well, I'm going to show you that I can," she said.
While she has the scholarship, she quickly found out it's still expensive to get over there. Scrimgeour didn't have a passport, and she needed to pay for flights and accommodation there.
Scrimgeour started playing golf before she could reach the pin. It was on a weekend away with her father Rob she would discover the sport - family friend Danny Herewini was also there.
"It was just a day out in Tauranga. The weather was a bit like this actually. Her father and I thought it was a great idea. We'd never touched golf clubs before, Mia wanted to come along for the ride and this is her now I guess," he said.
But being a professional golfer isn't in Scrimgeour's sights. Instead, she's using her scholarship to chase her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer.
"I decided a little while ago that maybe being a professional golfer isn't something that I truly want to do, but just because I might not want to be a professional, I can still use it for academic purposes and open up other doors," she said.
"Because I decided when I was seven that I wanted to be a lawyer ... I just always stuck with that."
Scrimgeour's spent countless hours at the driving range while juggling her school commitments, but although she's slogged and sacrificed for her sport, she feels she hasn't missed out on a normal life.
"I played netball because I had always loved it. I coached it through high school," she said.
"I had friends, you know. Like, I had a boyfriend at one point. I still wanted to be a teenager and experience everything as everyone else, but still be an elite sportsperson."
But after 13 years on the amateur circuit, she said her passion for the sport waned, partly because of the pressure and the lack of whanaungatanga.
"Golf is an individual sport, of course, but it doesn't have to be, you know, like you play team events," she said.
"But yeah, I never really felt like a team enough for me. So I think going to America where they're all about team like, yes, you're playing as an individual, but you help the team to win. I think being in that type of environment where you are supporting each other all the time will have a big, big effect."
The competition where Scrimgeour really feels the love is The National Māori Golf Tournament. She's won the tournament two years in a row but wasn't able to make it a third after this year's competition was cancelled because of COVID-19.
"It was pretty disappointing, not just because I wanted to win it again, but this is the last time I might be able to do it for at least four years while I'm going to be in America," she said.
Even though she's planned to study overseas for most of her life, Scrimgeour is under no illusion that she's going to miss hanging out with her whānau. But for now, she's focussed on her American adventure and enjoying everything she has worked towards.
Made with support from Te Māngai Pāho and the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
