Q & A: Meet the 17-year-old Delaware Nation golf champion

The best Indigenous golfers from across Ontario came together this week to compete in the Indigenous Ontario Golf Championships.

More than 100 golfers from dozens of First Nations met for the third time at the MontHill Golf & Country Club of the Six Nations of the Grand River from August 12 to 14 to compete.

Among them is 17-year-old Savana Smith of Delaware Nation, who took third place in the women's competition.

Cheryl Mitchell of Walpole Island took first place and Lorraine Elijah of the Oneida Nation of the Thames took fourth place.

Smith spoke with CBC's Matt Allen on Afternoon Drive about her love of the game and how she got started in golf.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

LISTEN: Indigenous golfer Savana Smith talks about her passion for the sport

Matt Allen: Congratulations on the win. What does it mean to you?

SS: It's just something I've always looked forward to. It's my favourite tournament that I play in every year and this is the third year that it's been held. It's just really important to me, especially that we manage to have only indigenous players.

MA: How did you get into sports?

SS: I just started during COVID. My dad used to play a lot of golf. I would go golf maybe once a week. But when COVID came, I couldn't play baseball anymore, so I just needed something to do. That's when I started playing because that was the only thing I could really do.

MA: Did you find it easy to develop a golf swing after playing baseball?

SS: When I first started, having played baseball my whole life, I had a pretty bad swing. I would say it was just baseball. But I think that swing and playing hockey also gave me a desire to just hit the ball. And I think that's the case with a lot of other kids that I've talked to, they just want to hit the ball and rip it and just see how far they can hit it.

I would say my dad probably taught me everything I know in the year after I started, so it was really just trial and error. I would say a year later, I probably had a pretty good swing.

MA: Why golf?

SS: I feel like when you hit the ball really well, you just feel like you want to do it over and over again. And those bad shots don't really affect how I feel about my goals. It's very frustrating, but hitting those good shots is just so much more rewarding.

MA: These are the best Indigenous golfers in the province that you competed against. What was it like competing against them?

SS: I've played with really good girls the other years. Now that I've been able to compete with the women, I realized how much better I'm getting at this sport. And it's just something I can work on every year. I didn't win the overall women's competition, but I was third, so being up there with the top now gives me even more motivation to work on it next year.

MA: When you look at the faces of the most famous golfers, you don't see many well-known Indigenous athletes competing. What has it been like for you to bring a little more diversity to the sport?

SS: It's really nice to see, especially because Cheryl Mitchell won the competition and she's my cousin. She competed in an LPGA Tour event. Knowing that she went through that and that she's always there and can help me along the way makes me feel a lot better. Knowing that she can do it, I can do it, and so many other people can do it if you really just have a good support group.

MA: What do you hope your experience will demonstrate to other young Indigenous athletes?

SS: I hope they will see how much fun it is because I always have fun, even in difficult times. I just keep doing it because I love it so much and I hope that when they find something they love, like golf, they just keep working at it to get better.