2 minute read
Hammer's Time
Mitch “The Hammer” Hampson pushed through an injury and the pandemic to achieve his goals.
Mitch Hampson (Golf and Club Management alumni, 2023) started golfing at the age of three, but he didn’t get really serious about the sport until around the age of seven. Not surprisingly, his passion for the game eventually led him to the Golf and Club Management program at Fanshawe.
Along the way Mitch acquired his nickname “The Hammer” and racked up several tournament wins. In 2022, he captured OCAA individual gold and CCAA individual silver, and helped the Fanshawe Falcon’s golf team capture its first national team medal (bronze) and first provincial championship title in 30 years.
Mitch was born in South Africa where he made his mark as a junior golfer and attracted attention from several U.S. colleges before being sidelined in 2020, first by a serious back injury, and then by the pandemic. “I couldn’t play golf for a whole year,” he says.
By 2021, he had recovered from the stress fracture in his back and moved with his parents and sister to Mitchell, Ontario, where his grandparents live. It didn’t take long to get his swing back—he shot 66 in his first golf game in Canada.
Mitch graduated from the program and is happily working with the grounds crew at Mitchell Golf & Country Club. His goal is to eventually be in a head greenskeeper position, or he might return to Fanshawe to pursue a business diploma.
"The two years I was at Fanshawe were fantastic,” he says.
As well as making good use of the indoor golf simulator year-round, he really enjoyed competing for the College as a Falcon. “The golf courses you get to play on are spectacular, and the people on the team that you play with are unreal.”
