VYPE:What are your goals this season ?
Mimi: My goals for this school season is to win state as an individual along with winning regionals. I’m also aiming to shoot in the low 70s or below for the rest of the tournaments left this season.

VYPE: What has your sport taught you that you use in your daily life?
Mimi: I’ve been playing golf for a pretty long time, since I was 7 years old. Since then, I’ve been a part of the First Tee where I was taught values that apply to not only the course, but also my life. Honesty would have to be one of the most important life skills I was taught because I learned there will always be consequences to being dishonest. Although there have been times in my daily life where I felt like lying would help my case, being caught in a lie is a worse consequence than being honest.

VYPE: What does your team mean to you?
Mimi: My team means a lot to me. As being an upperclassman and also the top two bags on varsity, my teammates have taught me a lot as being a leader. Since being on the golf team, we all together have made history for girls golf at our school. We’re always there to help or lift each other up when we’re in a slump and I think that bond is an important thing to have on a team to work together.

VYPE: Who inspires you and why?
Mimi: Someone who inspires me is Hanni Pham who is a member of a Korean pop girl group, NewJeans. She is one of the first Vietnamese k-pop idols in the industry and the first Viet to debut from the biggest company. I feel there’s a lack of Vietnamese representation in the world and when she debuted, it had really made every Vietnamese proud. I believe self-representation is important as an Asian-American growing up in Oklahoma and as a golfer. I’ve always noticed the lack of Asian golfers here and that there are hardly any Vietnamese LPGA players. Whether it is in golf, or another career path I take, I want to make history and make my country proud as a Vietnamese-American.

VYPE: What teammate has left the biggest impression on you and why?
Mimi: A teammate that has left the biggest impression on me would be Jaeya Mathis. We’ve been teammates since middle school along as best friends. We always went to First Tee classes together, played together, and practiced together. I remember first joining the girls golf team in seventh grade and being really shy because I didn’t know anybody and Jaeya was the first to break my shell and my first golf friend. Since meeting her, I became more open to meeting people and talking to others during tournaments. With her beside me, I not only improve as a golfer, but also a person. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be a leader by my side.

VYPE: What is your favorite part about being on a team?
Mimi: My favorite part about being on the team is all of us improving together as the
season goes on. We always talk about our scores and what we did bad/good after
tournaments and the next day we practice together to fix our problems. It’s nice to have motivating teammates that can make me smile after a rough round and push me to work harder and improve.

VYPE: You can pick any place for a summer vacation, where do you go and who do
you take with you?
Mimi: If i can pick any place to go on vacation, it would be Japan and take either my oldest sister or my boyfriend with me haha. Japan has always been on the top of my list of places to visit and I would love to explore the city and countryside. It’s a beautiful country with a wonderful culture and I hope one day I could visit there, and maybe even live!

VYPE: What is the best advice you have ever received ?
Mimi: The best advice I’ve received was to be patient with my self-improvement. When I was younger, I often fell behind other girls in tournaments and I kinda got discouraged by it but my dad always told me that just means there’s more room to improve and to not give up. With a goal always in my mind, I kept pushing and chasing after it by practicing. Everyone is different and each person is going to improve at their own pace and achieve their goal whether it is this time or the next. If you keep preserving, then the hard work will pay off.

VYPE: Here is your chance to say hello, goodbye or thank you to anyone you wish.
Mimi: I would like to say thank you to my swing coach of 12 years, Dustin Semsch. Dustin has taught me life and golf skills at the First Tee since I first started golf and has a big impact on the love I have for the sport. He has seen me grow as a person and golfer and molded me into who I am today. I would also like to say thank you to my dad for always pushing me to my best. My dad was the one who introduced me to golf and I am so beyond thankful for him. Although there’ve been rough golf times and I’ve had to go through his lectures, it all paid off in the end. With him always guiding me throughout the years, I am so happy to say I’m committed to play golf for UCO and going full ride!