Kim Kaufman’s breast cancer diagnosis hit hard when she was forced to withdraw from the final stage of December’s LPGA Qualifying School last year.
Now, less than a year later, 34-year-old Kaufman returns to the second stage of LPGA Qualifying — cancer-free.
Kaufman received her breast cancer diagnosis the week after the Epson Tour Championship around this time last fall. She had a lumpectomy in November and started chemo treatments in January. After those wrapped up in April, she did seven weeks of radiation, which ended in early June.
Last week, Kaufman was named the Epson Tour’s 2025 Heather Wilbur Spirit Award recipient, which is given to a player who exemplifies dedication, courage, perseverance, love of the game and a spirit toward achieving goals as a professional golfer. The award is voted on by the Epson Tour membership.
“I want to say a huge thank you for awarding me the Heather Wilbur Spirit Award for this year on the Epson Tour,” said Kaufman in a release. “We all know it’s been a long year for me, but to be recognized for my perseverance and coming out on the other side, it just means the world to me.”
The Qualifying Stage of LPGA Q-School will be held Oct. 15-18 at Plantation Golf and Country Club in Venice, Florida. The field of 198 will compete on the Bobcat and Panther courses.
Kaufman played her first full season on the LPGA in 2014 after a successful stint at Texas Tech. The 6-foot-tall native of Clark, South Dakota, has mostly played on the Epson Tour in recent years, where she’s a three-time winner. A published author who would’ve gone to law school had golf not worked out, Kaufman has always been more substance than flash.
Before returning to competition on the Epson Tour, Kaufman worked to bring complimentary breast cancer screenings to the Hartford HealthCare Women’s Championship in July.
“I had it at 32, diagnosed at 33, so a good reminder,” Kaufman told the Epson Tour.
“But there are also girls from a lot of other countries who don’t go home, or maybe their country, it’s not in their protocol to really do an exam every year. There are Americans that don’t do it, there are definitely other countries that don’t, so if we can just have these 150 girls do it … I’m hoping and thinking everyone will be fine, but if it’s not, like me, then you wanna catch it early. So that would be a huge thing.”
Tour players rallied around Kaufman in many ways. Dorsey Addicks spearheaded a fundraiser to raise money for cancer research. LPGA player Kate Smith-Stroh designed a “Kim’s Army” hoodie that helped raise more than $1,800 for the Joan Katz Cancer Resource Center.
Kaufman returned to the Epson Tour in September at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout in Arkansas, where she took a share of 37th. She began her road back to the LPGA in July on the Annika Women’s All-Pro Tour (WAPT) and was recently given the Wilson Award for Perseverance on that tour.
Read the full article here