Q & A with Salimah Mussani, Head Coach of Team Canada's Women's Golf Program

Interview conducted and edited by Sabrina Xiaorui Wu

Portrait of Coach Salimah Mussani. (Photo courtesy of Salimah Mussani)

Following an accomplished junior career that included two Ontario Junior Championship titles and two Canadian Junior Championship titles, Coach Salimah Mussani transitioned to collegiate golf, where she helped Stanford finish as runner-up at the 2000 NCAA Championship while recording five top-10 finishes in two seasons. Subsequently, Coach Mussani competed professionally on the Epson Tour, LPGA Tour, and Canadian Women's Tour. Her professional accomplishments include victories at the 2007 Canadian PGA Women's Championship and the 2006 Michelob Ultra Duramed Futures Tour Championship. Following her playing career, Coach Mussani transitioned to coaching, serving in various roles, including as the assistant coach for the women's golf program at Stanford University and as the golf teaching professional at the University of British Columbia, before becoming the Stollery Family Women's Head Coach for Team Canada. There, she leads the development of the country’s top female golfers. I had the privilege of speaking with Coach Mussani regarding her personal journey as a professional golfer and national coach, as well as her perspective on the experiences of women golfers.

WU: What first attracted you to golf?

MUSSANI: I was playing seven other sports just before high school. I played a lot of field hockey, and then volleyball, basketball, soccer. All team sports. Once I started playing golf, I realized that I reap the reward or feel the detriment for not doing the right amount of work for the time and effort I put in. I was responsible for my own success. 

WU: How has your relationship with golf evolved as you've transitioned from competitor to coach? Are there parts of the game you appreciate now that you didn't as a player?

MUSSANI: I appreciate more of the performance coaching side. So the strategy and the stats. Mapping out a golf course, having an intention, having a plan. These are definitely things that I've learned a lot about since I’ve been coaching. I definitely miss playing, but I don’t miss competing because I’m much older now and you see the amount of work and what it takes. 

WU: If you could go back and have one conversation with your younger self at the beginning of your golf journey, what would you tell her?

MUSSANI: I would probably tell her that golf is going to teach you a lot. It’s going to allow you to meet some of the most interesting people. That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve taken away from golf is the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve made because you don’t get to do that with every sport. We’ve stayed in housing, met sponsors, caddies, coaches and all of the different people that spend a lot of time with you. You build lifelong memories and lifelong friendships and relationships. I would tell myself back then to look forward to all the goodness that lies ahead and the people you’re going to meet who are going to be a part of your life beyond your golf career. 

WU: You've often said you've been different from those around you and haven't always conformed to societal norms. What mindset or mental qualities have helped you embrace your individuality with confidence?

MUSSANI: I think when we’re all young, we just don’t have fear. We see something we want to do and we do it. We figure it out. I was always pretty mentally tough. I worked with one sports psychologist when I was in college, but other than that, I didn't do anything to create some sort of specific mindset. Whereas now we have a mental performance coach on our staff who the girls are working with and it’s a massive piece of their success. But for me, I just didn't have a lot of fear. It was that love of competition that kind of propelled me back then.

WU: Who has been one of the most influential people in your golf journey, and what is one lesson from them that has stayed with you?

MUSSANI: I would say my first and only coach for the most part, Leo Zampedro. He was everything: a mentor, a father, a coach. He lived in Ohio and I didn't see him very often, but he was basically the only coach I had for almost twelve years. He taught me everything I needed to know and guided me through things. Everybody's got a short game coach and a putting coach and a swing coach now. I just had one guy that I would see like once or twice a year. And that was it. But he’s the person who's had the most influence on me in my golf world.

The biggest thing I learned from him is that golf is not your life. Golf doesn't define who you are. It's something you do. But if you allow golf, your scores, and your results to determine who you are, your worth, your status among your peers, and where you believe you belong, it's a really hard journey and a really hard career to take. Being able to separate results from who I was as a human was really important.

WU: When people first meet you, what do you wish they knew beyond the titles of coach and competitor?

MUSSANI: At the end of the day, I really am a very soft human. I'm very emotional. I might be mentally tough in some ways, but I really care about my players as humans. I want to make sure that they're taking care of themselves because we never know how long careers are going to last. We never know when something's going to happen. So making sure they're building habits and creating differences. I want them to be successful. I want them to get on the LPGA. I want them to have sustained careers out there. But if it all doesn't work out, I just want to leave them as better humans with better habits. 

WU: You often talk about giving athletes the means to succeed and helping them become better people, not just better golfers. What does that look like in the small, everyday moments that people don't see? 

MUSSANI: Making sure that they're doing little things that make a big impact on their careers and reputations. Like replying to things, doing things that they're asked to do, after a tournament sending a thank you note, and sending out messages to their sponsors quarterly. If they play in a big event like a major, then buying some mementos to give to certain people that are important in their journey. You never know when somebody you've sent a thank you note to comes in handy when you are in that town and need a golf course to practice at. And they're like, "Oh, I remember you. You sent me a thank you note." So just small little things like that are what I think are really important lessons and habits to have. And those have nothing to do with golf. Your ability to talk to somebody has nothing to do with how well you hit the golf ball, but it's just as important in the grand scheme of things.

WU: How would you describe your coaching philosophy?

MUSSANI: I like to think that I'm helping my players transform into something. Taking the player and not just making them a better golfer, but setting a good example and helping them to become better people. That's the most important thing to my coaching philosophy. 

It has changed a lot over four years. It started out being able to technically help them have sound golf swings, because that was my job description and what I thought I was getting into. Now, I'm more of a mentor, a role model, and a mental coach. There are little things I help them with in their golf swing and I'm in touch with their swing coaches, but that's not the primary thing I am doing. I am doing a lot of the performance side, so the statistics analysis and the game planning. Just all that stuff that's very different from hitting a seven iron with certain numbers on a Trackman. I think I am more of a holistic coach.

WU: You've been open about how dealing with health challenges has changed your perspective. How has that experience influenced the way you support athletes when they're struggling?

MUSSANI: Based on what I've gone through, I know the longevity of golf. It’s around for a long time, so I'm always in the camp of health comes first. I didn't follow that advice myself because I didn't have a mentor or somebody to help me make my decisions. But knowing what I know now, I'm very much health comes first. Pay attention to your body. Pay attention to what's going on. Golf will wait. You can be fifty and still competing at golf. There's no upper limit. 

WU: Could you describe your most rewarding experience as a golf coach?

MUSSANI: There have been so many. Seeing all of my players have success is obviously a big one; whenever they win events or they break a record. Also when you see them actually growing in the way that they're doing things and the way they're managing themselves. When you see a player that really gets it and understands what it takes to be elite, and you watch them in their daily habits as they prepare for events. I think that's one of the most rewarding pieces for sure.

WU: What are some lesser known qualities that the most successful female golfers you’ve coached tend to have in common?

MUSSANI: A really big piece of being successful is your ability to reflect. I think that's a really underrated skill. That means when you come off the golf course, can you actually figure out what just happened? How did you react to it? What do you do next to get ready for the next tournament or the next day? 

The ones that are good at that, they're basically doing and learning. There's no failure in those people's minds because they do something and no matter how it turns out, they've learned something and then they take it with them to the next week. But if you just play in an event and the results are the results and you either carry it as a heavy burden or you're like I'm at the top of the world, then when you go to the next event, it doesn't usually just carry over. And if it does, it's going to be a heavier weight anyway. So I think the ability to reflect and leave things in the past is really important. 

Move on and look at each week, each day, and each shot as its own. This comes down to being a mental skill that many people just don't practice. A lot of elite golfers or people that think they want to be elite often are at the practice range for five, six hours beating balls and hitting a million putts. But if you don't actually know what you're trying to work on, it's going to be difficult to improve.

WU: How can young golfers begin developing these qualities? Are there any habits, drills, or mental exercises that you would recommend?

MUSSANI: It's all about practicing. I don't think there is any shortcut. Yes, you can go buy a journal, but to me it just comes down to habit. 

Let's imagine you're thirteen, and you start doing that. Now you make the national team at the age of eighteen. You already know what that looks and feels like. It's already a habit. Building habits is a whole other thing. You have to sometimes stack things on top of something else in order to make it regular, because the first time you do something is hard. And then the next time it's a little easier. Once it becomes a habit, you don't even think about it.

I think that's just part of starting early and understanding the significance of it. That's one of the things we fight with a lot, having the girls understand the value of doing these things because golf is not an instant gratification sport. If I journal and I do these things, maybe three months from now, those notes will come in handy because I'll remember I was in this position before. I’ll remember writing about it, so I’ll go read what I did, what worked, and what didn't work. It's not going to be I journal today and tomorrow I'm going to be fantastic. If you can learn to do things earlier, that's the trick.

WU: You’ve mentioned in a speech that "golf wasn't your identity, and it never will be." That's a difficult lesson for many elite athletes to learn. How do you help young players build an identity that's bigger than their scorecard?

MUSSANI: It's just a constant discussion after different rounds, whether they played well or they played poorly. That's why reflection is so important, because once you've done that, you can leave it to the side. When we don't write things down or we don't have a conversation, I feel like we carry it into our night and into our next day. So I really believe that doing the reflection piece is a way to separate yourself from your round of golf as you move into the rest of your day. 

WU: How would you like to be remembered as a golf coach? What lasting impact do you hope to have on your students?

MUSSANI: I pray that it's a positive impact that I've left on them. I don't need them to always remember me saying this one thing all the time. I just hope that they understand the values that I'm bringing and I’m adding some value to what they're doing, because everybody's got so much guidance now between parents, college coaches, their swing coaches, and myself. 

Coach Salimah Mussani laughs as she talks with a player on the course. (Photo courtesy of Salimah Mussani)

WU: Even today, there still aren’t many women in leadership roles in golf, whether as coaches or golf professionals. How important is representation for the next generation of girls entering the game?

MUSSANI: It's one of the hardest jobs as a female. A lot of these women and girls and even the juniors are very used to taking instruction from men. Even for me, all the people that ever taught me anything about golf were men. Now we have a women in coaching program that we help to run where we take five to eight coaches from Canada every year. We put them through training, we bring them to our training camps, we give them exposure to high performance players, how to coach them, what we do, and how we spend a day with our athletes. This is all in the name of empowering these women to go out into their cities and their country clubs and make a big impact so that they can also move up and get higher titles. Whether it's having professional titles like director of instruction or coaching provincial teams or national teams.

WU: Women's golf has grown significantly in recent years. From your perspective, what has driven that growth? And what still needs to happen to keep the momentum going?

MUSSANI: COVID was a big push in women's golf. A lot of people who always said they wanted to try golf and didn't have time found an opportunity during COVID. It was one of the only sports you could play. Now there are so many more ladies leagues and opportunities to go into groups with women where they're teaching golf, etiquette, and inclusivity, making women feel comfortable. It just needs to continue. The ability to help these women understand that golf doesn't need to be intimidating; it is a sport for everyone.

Like any sport, once you know the rules and where you're supposed to be, you feel more comfortable. I think as long as these programs continue to do all these things, it'll be positive. Once that blows up, there's going to be even less tee times available.

WU: You described golf as being a predominantly white, male sport when you started. In what ways has the culture changed, and where do you still hope to see progress?

MUSSANI: The First Tee programs around the country are really good with getting kids into it at a young age. Whether or not they continue it right away, there are a lot of young girls in those projects and classes. I think getting that exposure at a young age is definitely one piece of getting them into golf sooner. 

The face of golf is changing. When I started playing in 1993, there were no girls that looked like me who were playing golf. It just wasn't a common thing. It’s more prevalent now and people see what the LPGA is doing. You can actually be good at sports and have a good career.

WU: Have you faced any challenges or barriers that you feel are unique to women in golf? If so, how have you navigated them, and what advice would you give to other women facing similar challenges?

MUSSANI: The biggest thing is imposter syndrome; always thinking that you're not good enough. I still have those moments. It's natural. When you're in a room full of men and your opinion is asked, you probably know no matter what you say, whether it's right or not, you're going to get judged. That's just the reality of being a female in this industry. 

My advice is be an expert at something and if you can, at least know that you've learned something somewhere and stand behind it with conviction. If you use evidence-based teaching, it's hard to be judged or thought of in a bad light. For me, that's kind of the way I've dealt with things. When I'm presenting something, I always have stats or data to back my opinions and my feedback, and that's been really helpful.

WU: You’re clearly a pioneer in the women’s golf field. What advice would you give to women stepping into leadership roles in a male dominated field for the first time?

MUSSANI: Know your stuff and work hard. I'm always learning. I'm always staying up with the trends in golf. I'm reading. I'm watching men's golf. I'm watching women's golf. The biggest advice is to stay up with the trends, up with what’s prevalent in the sport, and always keep learning, so you can hold conversations with anyone in the room. That'll empower you more than you know.

WU: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that deter women and girls from trying golf?

MUSSANI: There's lots. It takes the whole day, it’s long, it’s all men, it’s boring. But if you learn and you go to these clinics and leagues, I think a lot of women fall in love with the sport because of the community. If I show up and I come with my friends and I meet a whole bunch of other women who are in the same position as me, and we're all having fun together, we're going to come back next week and do it again. That's what's bringing most women back. It's not like the competitive piece or the getting better at the sport piece. It's just building community and culture. I think that's a big piece of what's going to keep driving women's golf growth.

WU: As someone who has played professional golf, what advice would you give to any girls who are interested in going down the same path? Is there anything they should know beforehand that isn’t always obvious?

MUSSANI: Compete as much as you can. Learn. Don't be afraid of failure. That's probably one of the biggest things. I think what people don't understand is if there was a very generic recipe for success, the most important ingredient would be failure.

I always use the same example with my players. When you were learning to walk and you fell down the first time, do you think your parents gave up on you and were like, “oh my child's not destined to walk?” They let you fall over and over again, and then one day you start walking. To me, that's the definition of why failure is so important to success. If you don't fall down, you never learn to walk. It cannot be looked at negatively; it's a positive piece of your growth and your improvement. 

WU: If a young girl picks up a golf club because she heard your story, what's one message you hope she carries with her?

MUSSANI: Love what you do. Pay attention to the people you're meeting and spend time with them. The relationships are the most important thing in life. 

And don't be afraid to try things. You can always say no to them in the future, but if we don't try, we don't know what we're missing. Try them once and then don't be afraid to dream big.