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Mia Hamm shared the most relatable golf moment ever
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Mia Hamm is on site at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship—yeah, the Mia Hamm! I'm not freaking out, you're freaking out—to receive the KPMG Inspire Greatness Award. While talking to the media on site at Hazeltine about more serious topics like leadership and the development of women's sports, Hamm also told a hilariously relatable story about the first time she played golf.
"The first time I ever played golf, I was just out of college," says Hamm. "And I shanked my 7-iron and I kept swinging and I threw it into this thicket bush. I was standing there going, I need a 7-iron to play, but I don't want to go in there and get it."
Cue every golfer on the planet nodding their head in painful understanding.
"So I had to swallow my pride," Hamm continues, "Went into the thicket. Came out. I was all scratched up, bloody, but I had my 7-iron and I just realized that golf is a sport that—like in soccer, if you get mad, that effort makes a difference. But in golf, the harder you try, the more, like, frustrated you are, the worse you get. And so it allowed me to kind of step away, take a deep breath and really just kind of let go of all that anger and frustration and just focus on whatever shot was in front of me."
Next time you're climbing out of some creek retrieving a golf ball, or trying to shimmy up a tree to get a club that you've just let fly, remember that you're not alone. Golf does this to quite literally everyone. Even Mia Hamm.
Also, try to take that extra step, like Hamm did, and realize that letting the many frustrations of golf take over might not be the best way to a career round.