Over the past three years, Farah O’Keefe has become one of the best amateurs in golf. Since enrolling at the University of Texas in 2023, the junior has rocketed from outside the top 200 into the top five in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. She shared low-amateur honors at the LPGA’s first major this year, the Chevron Championship, and capped a stellar college campaign on Monday by winning the individual title at the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship, her fourth collegiate victory in 2026. On Tuesday, she was named the recipient of the 2026 Annika Award as the top player in women’s college golf.
In two weeks, O’Keefe will make her Curtis Cup debut for the United States at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Like always, the Texas native is more than ready to fight for her team.
“Whatever I’m wearing on my chest, whether it’s the University of Texas or the American flag or the Palmer Cup umbrella, I try to represent that with the most integrity that I possibly can,” O’Keefe said. “I’m super excited to have an opportunity to play for my country in such a cool and unique event.”
While much of O’Keefe’s success is down to improvements in the measurable parts of the game, like driving accuracy and putting, perhaps more important is the improvement in her mental game.
“I always thought that if you have a strong mental game and you have a really strong game, you’re eliminating the bad shots,” O’Keefe said. “The 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’t catch you by surprise and you’re ready to bounce back from that.”
O’Keefe grew up playing golf with her father, Michael, a former professional tennis and rugby player. A fierce competitor, O’Keefe’s 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?
“Of course 10-year-old me was like, ‘I want to stack trophies.’ That was probably the first push but he eased off as time went on so I could discover my own enjoyment for the game.”
Although O’Keefe often got frustrated after not winning, her father reminded her to focus on the process.
“I was fiery, competitive, and I always wanted to win everything,” O’Keefe said. “He almost had to calm me down at one point like, ‘I get it, you want to win but you can’t just force winning to happen. You have to go through the right steps.’”
The turning point came in April 2019. O’Keefe was attending her eighth-grade classes, but there was something else important going on: the Masters. Like golf fans around the world, O’Keefe wanted to watch as Tiger Woods rose into contention, and she begged her teachers to let her watch during class.
It wasn’t 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.
“I would get $5 from doing household chores for my mom,” O’Keefe said. “I 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’t want to pay for any more chocolate milk for this guy. I think I maybe paid for chocolate milk once or twice after that.”
In middle school, O’Keefe acknowledged she fell out of love with the game. She still played, but it wasn’t her primary focus and she played basketball for two seasons.
The turning point came in April 2019. O’Keefe was attending her eighth-grade classes, but there was something else important going on: the Masters. Like golf fans around the world, O’Keefe wanted to watch as Tiger Woods rose into contention, and she begged her teachers to let her watch during class.
That weekend, she had a golf tournament to play in. Before Woods won on Sunday, O’Keefe claimed a trophy of her own.
“I 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,” she said.
O’Keefe dreamed of turning pro, and she’s well on her way.
When Texas coach Laura Ianello took over the Longhorns in 2024, she didn’t know much about O’Keefe, but that changed quickly.
“From day one she has been a person with good energy, or what we like to call juice,” Ianello said.
But Ianello says O’Keefe sometimes let her competitive spirit overwhelm her, a tendency she has curbed this year.
“The 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,” Ianello said. “Last year she was a little bit of a hothead.”
Last winter, O’Keefe 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.
“It’s really easy to get ahead of yourself,” O’Keefe said. “Or 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.”
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’Keefe says she started thinking about results too much and became flustered when shots didn’t go her way.
Mentally and physically exhausted, O’Keefe 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.
“How can I get a little more physically prepared to do something like that in the future,” O’Keefe said. “The girls on tour right now, that’s probably a regular thing for them. I’m proud of what I accomplished [at the Chevron] but I’m still hungry for more.”
“She loves the United States of America. She loves Texas. So she’s just a kid you want on your team because she’s all in on everything in her life.” – Laura Ianello
She added the NCAA individual crown to her résumé 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’s 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.
While her goal is to turn pro, O’Keefe can now shift her focus to the Curtis Cup. Two years ago, O’Keefe got the call that she’d 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.
Ianello knows O’Keefe will make the most of her opportunity this year.
“These opportunities have not always been given to her and now they have been earned,” Ianello said. “She loves the United States of America. She loves Texas. So she’s just a kid you want on your team because she’s all in on everything in her life.”
Beyond the Curtis Cup, Ianello sees huge potential in O’Keefe.
“If Farah O’Keefe 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,” she said.