When Oumou Dieye first started competing against men in the sport of golf, she was not confident and felt a little afraid. The men did not want to golf with her nor did they take her seriously. But then, she won her first game. After that, she had all the confidence she needed to keep playing and defeating male golfers.
Dieye is the only professional female golfer in Senegal. She was introduced to golf by her brother-in-law and immediately fell in love. Not long after she began competing, Dieye was given a chance to train in Morocco. With the financial support from her French golf partners, she spent three months training with the Moroccan Golf Federation. She said she enjoyed the experience so much that she returned to Morocco and stayed for seven years. While there, she also taught children at a golfing school.
Today her home is filled with many golfing awards. She has won so many that she has lost track of the number. What she has done is notable because Senegal is a conservative, Muslim nation.
There is much pressure from society for women not to be involved in professional sports. The country practices a more liberal form of Islam（伊斯兰教）. However, the culture still has traditional ideas of what women should do. A woman who chooses sports over duties at home risks being rejected by her family. At first, her family was not supportive. But after seeing her love of the sport, they changed their minds.
In 2018, when Dieye returned from Morocco, she was not happy about the state of golf in her home country. She wanted to create a golf school similar to the one in Morocco. In 2020, the Senegalese Golf Federation agreed to help Dieye establish a golf school in preparation for the 2026 Summer Youth Olympics in Dakar. It will be Dieye's job to train Senegal's first national golf team. This will involve preparing female golfers-including her own daughter.
