HOUSTON — Farah O’Keefe is having fun in her home state of Texas, chatting it up on the golf course, throwing darts and making up-and-downs look easy.
It just so happens she’s doing all of this in a major championship. O’Keefe, a University of Texas junior and the fourth-ranked amateur in the world, shot a three-under 69 and finished her morning round in a tie for second, seven shots behind leader Nelly Korda.
For O’Keefe, it’s been a magical start. Making the cut alone would’ve been impressive. But she’s done so much more because she’s in contention. Former PGA Tour major winner Mark Brooks is O’Keefe’s swing coach, and he put a good omen out into the universe while following her during her round.
“I think I would love to see how many times I got up and down today. It just felt like I was scrambling all day, which it was funny,” O’Keefe said. “I was walking in between 17 and 18 and Mark goes, ‘Birdie putt. Give us a birdie putt.’ I did and it went in, and that was nice. That was a bonus.
“I think ball striking was kind of like B-minus from the fairway, but then the short game, putting was A-plus-plus. Kind of saved me out there.”
O’Keefe, 20, is the first amateur to open with back-to-back rounds of 60s in Chevron Championship history. She’s not the only amateur that’s doing well, either. Yunseo Yang and Asterisk Talley are in the top 15, as well.
And yet, for all the good she’s done, O’Keefe has a tall order in chasing down World No. 2 Nelly Korda, who shot back-to-back 65s and has a huge 36-hole lead. O’Keefe and her caddie, Bentley Cotton, have talked about the weekend and hoping for a chance to make up some ground.
Farah O’Keefe hits a recovery shot on the par-5 eighth hole, where she eventually made par.
Sarah Stier
“I told Bentley, I compared it to Rory at the Masters,” O’Keefe said. “Really, you never know what can happen in golf. There is so much that’s random out there that you can get a bad break and it’s just kind of that thing. My dad and I called it that golf is a staring contest and all you have to do is not blink first. So I’m just trying not to blink. Just trying to keep playing my game, and whatever that ends up at the end of the week is where it ends up. Trying to limit mistakes and give opportunities.”
O’Keefe is living a dream playing golf at Texas since she grew up in Austin. Her dad, Michael, played rugby and tennis. He also had a memorable conversation with her when she was a young junior golfer after shooting a 95.
“I was so happy after the round. I finished like sixth out of like seven girls. I was just giddy. Happy to be there,” O’Keefe said. “I go out in the car, and he started driving me around the golf course. It was 8 at night. I should not have been out there. He was driving me around and just looked at me and he was like, ‘Hey, do you want to be a middle of the pack social golfer or do you want to stack trophies? If you want to play socially, you can stop playing tournaments right now.’
“I was, like, got it, loud and clear. I’m going to try to stack some trophies. I just started taking it more seriously then. I really got a lot better in high school when I stopped playing multiple sports and focusing on golf. But I wanted to play professionally since I was, I guess, 10 or 11 years old.”
By the time O’Keefe arrived on UT’s campus, she was one of the better amateurs in the U.S., but hadn’t cracked the top 500 in the world. Now, she’s No. 4. She’s won three collegiate tournaments this year and of the seven she didn’t win, she still finished top 10. She finished tied for 15th, four shots back in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
The cameras love her, not only for her game but she’s got personality and loves to talk. O’Keefe is a dream for the LPGA, which wants to tell the stories of their golfers. And she’s open to talk and talk some more. Golf Channel did a walk-and-talk interview with her during her round on Friday.
“I just try to be authentic. I’m an open book,” O’Keefe said. “Not going to hide anything. I also love talking. I’m sure they’ve picked up on it, but Bentley and I are literally having a conversation every single time I’m not hitting a golf ball. So just talking is kind of like my relief, how I connect with people. So any media attention that I get is a good thing because I enjoy it. It’s fun.”
Her fan base isn’t hard to miss at Memorial Park with the burnt orange jerseys and caps. She has family and friends in her gallery and then there’s her friend Austin Skierski, a golfer at Southeastern Oklahoma State. They met in Austin and play on the same Fortnight squad. O’Keefe told reporters he was going to come watch her play at Memorial Park. He arrived Thursday night to meet up for dinner. Some people thought they’d never met, so the red flags were raised.
“I had several people reach out to me if I’ve ever met this guy before and if he’s some creep,” O’Keefe said with a laugh. “Like I played a lot of golf with this kid. I feel like I should clarify that. I know him very well.”
There would be no future “Dateline” episode here. She and her family and friends tried to go eat at Cabo Bob’s Burritos, their favorite hangout here, but it was so crowded they went to Chipotle instead. They were going to try again on Friday. It made for a funny story, though.
On a visit to her caddie Cotton’s home course in Austin, O’Keefe watched in awe when a kid was smashing the ball about 330 yards. “And I’m, like, who is that guy? We ended up joining up with him, Austin Skierski. Now we play Fortnite and it’s the most random thing ever. It’s me, Bentley, my brother, and then Austin. We run quads on Friday and Saturday nights when I’m home.”
For now, O’Keefe is busy contending in a major as an amateur. Before vision boards were a thing, O’Keefe made her own version of it as a child.
It happened after a junior tournament in which she didn’t play well. O’Keefe sat down at the kitchen table and opened a Word document on her mother’s computer. She wrote a list of what she wanted to accomplish in life.
“It’s my list of things. I think I only have three things scratched out—in U.S. Kids Junior Golf Tour, make it to the U.S. Kids Golf Junior Worlds, and get a scholarship,” O’Keefe said. “I still have a lot of blanks up there to try to finish. Some of them are own a truck or buy a big house, so there are other random goals. I started to love this game in a competitive aspect right around that time when I was 10, 11 years old.”
She’s already played in two U.S. Women’s Opens, missing the cut in 2023 at Pebble Beach, and she was the low amateur in 2025 at Erin Hills. If you’re wondering if she wrote down ‘win a major,”’she did more than that.
“For golf, Hall of Famer. I think I put win 20 majors on there when I was 10 years old because I knew it was more than Jack [Nicklaus],” O’Keefe said. “So it was, like, ‘yeah, I want to be the winningest ever.’ Seems like unattainable now that I played in a couple majors, but you know, dream big. Then if you come up short, still pretty good.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
