\u201cI always thought that if you have a strong mental game and you have a really strong game, you\u2019re eliminating the bad shots,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cThe thing I learned is that good players can still hit ugly shots and miss 3-footers. Expect that to happen at some point so when it does it doesn\u2019t catch you by surprise and you\u2019re ready to bounce back from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe grew up playing golf with her father, Michael, a former professional tennis and rugby player. A fierce competitor, O\u2019Keefe\u2019s dad pushed her to be the best player she could possibly be. When she was 10, she was happy after shooting 95 in a junior tournament and finishing near the bottom of the leaderboard. On the drive home, her dad asked her a question: Do you want to be a middle-of-the-pack social golfer or do you want to stack trophies?<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course 10-year-old me was like, \u2018I want to stack trophies.\u2019 That was probably the first push but he eased off as time went on so I could discover my own enjoyment for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although O\u2019Keefe often got frustrated after not winning, her father reminded her to focus on the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fiery, competitive, and I always wanted to win everything,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cHe almost had to calm me down at one point like, \u2018I get it, you want to win but you can\u2019t just force winning to happen. You have to go through the right steps.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe turning point came in April 2019. O\u2019Keefe was attending her eighth-grade classes, but there was something else important going on: the Masters. Like golf fans around the world, O\u2019Keefe wanted to watch as Tiger Woods rose into contention, and she begged her teachers to let her watch during class.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It wasn\u2019t just losing tournaments that bugged her, it was also losing to her dad. There was always something on the line when father and daughter played. Most of the time, the loser bought chocolate milk for both.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would get $5 from doing household chores for my mom,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cI remember there was one time when I was around 13 where I had to dip into my stash so I could pay for chocolate milk. I was so mad. I was like, this is never going to happen again. I don\u2019t want to pay for any more chocolate milk for this guy. I think I maybe paid for chocolate milk once or twice after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In middle school, O\u2019Keefe acknowledged she fell out of love with the game. She still played, but it wasn\u2019t her primary focus and she played basketball for two seasons.<\/p>\n
The turning point came in April 2019. O\u2019Keefe was attending her eighth-grade classes, but there was something else important going on: the Masters. Like golf fans around the world, O\u2019Keefe wanted to watch as Tiger Woods rose into contention, and she begged her teachers to let her watch during class.<\/p>\n
That weekend, she had a golf tournament to play in. Before Woods won on Sunday, O\u2019Keefe claimed a trophy of her own.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2277625601-455x455.jpg\")
O\u2019 Keefe has improved her ability to cope with adversity on the course. C. Morgan Engel, NCAA Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember him tapping in the final putt, and I looked at my mom and I said that is so cool, I want to do that some day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe dreamed of turning pro, and she\u2019s well on her way.<\/p>\n
When Texas coach Laura Ianello took over the Longhorns in 2024, she didn\u2019t know much about O\u2019Keefe, but that changed quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom day one she has been a person with good energy, or what we like to call juice,\u201d Ianello said.<\/p>\n
But Ianello says O\u2019Keefe sometimes let her competitive spirit overwhelm her, a tendency she has curbed this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest improvement outside her physical game the past year has been her ability to face adversity on the golf course, stay composed, stay in the moment,\u201d Ianello said. \u201cLast year she was a little bit of a hothead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last winter, O\u2019Keefe and her teammates participated in a three-month long mental performance training program with Brian Cain. The mental performance coach taught the athletes how to build good routines as well as the importance of staying present.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really easy to get ahead of yourself,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cOr to look back and think if I just made that one putt. You can kind of go down that rabbit hole instead of being present and staying in the 200 feet that are in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Chevron Championship, that mental training helped her for the first three rounds as she played her way into contention. But on the final day, O\u2019Keefe says she started thinking about results too much and became flustered when shots didn\u2019t go her way.<\/p>\n
Mentally and physically exhausted, O\u2019Keefe shot 79 in the final round at Memorial Park in Houston to finish T38 and share low-amateur honors with Yunseo Yang. She had played 12 rounds of golf in 12 days between the SEC Championship (where she carried her bag) and the Chevron.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can I get a little more physically prepared to do something like that in the future,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cThe girls on tour right now, that\u2019s probably a regular thing for them. I\u2019m proud of what I accomplished [at the Chevron] but I\u2019m still hungry for more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe loves the United States of America. She loves Texas. So she\u2019s just a kid you want on your team because she\u2019s all in on everything in her life.\u201d \u2013 Laura Ianello<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
She added the NCAA individual crown to her r\u00e9sum\u00e9 on Monday at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, Calif., making birdies on the last two holes to finish two strokes ahead of 2025 U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur champion Megha Ganne of Stanford. Her finish capped a rollicking final nine over which she made only two pars and held her composure to scramble for a bogey after hitting a shank on the 14th hole.<\/p>\n
While her goal is to turn pro, O\u2019Keefe can now shift her focus to the Curtis Cup. Two years ago, O\u2019Keefe got the call that she\u2019d just missed out on a Curtis Cup spot at Sunningdale and would be an alternate. While the disappointment motivated her to get better, it still hurt as she watched the U.S. fall to the GB&I team.<\/p>\n
Ianello knows O\u2019Keefe will make the most of her opportunity this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese opportunities have not always been given to her and now they have been earned,\u201d Ianello said. \u201cShe loves the United States of America. She loves Texas. So she\u2019s just a kid you want on your team because she\u2019s all in on everything in her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the Curtis Cup, Ianello sees huge potential in O\u2019Keefe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Farah O\u2019Keefe continues to keep taking care of what she can control, that is, her game, her mental game, her physical game, she will be a major champion one day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Global Golf Post LLC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farah O\u2019Keefe celebrates after making a birdie putt on the 18th hole to clinch the individual title at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4032,4033,44,4034,4035],"class_list":["post-7679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-curtis-cup","tag-farah-okeefe","tag-golf","tag-ncaa-championship","tag-university-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2277636146.jpg\")
Farah O\u2019Keefe celebrates after making a birdie putt on the 18th hole to clinch the individual title at the NCAA Division I Women\u2019s Golf Championship. C. Morgan Engel, NCAA Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1000x600-Quantum-Driver-2x-1-700x420.jpg\")
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