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Before her U.S. Women’s Open Championship debut in 2023 as a 17-year-old, Texas golfer Farah O’Keefe’s had spent most of her career without many peers. Fresh out of Anderson High School, she dominated nearly every tournament she entered.
Winning was often a predetermined outcome.
Once she began her U.S. Open round, she quickly realized the pond she had been comfortably swimming in fed into an ocean. She missed the cut and was confronted with golf’s uncomfortable truth: even the best professionals lose more than they win.
“Going to a major championship was completely different, and I wouldn’t say that I was completely unprepared, but I was definitely not mentally ready to go on the first tee,” O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe enters the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open after undergoing serious development in her first two years at Texas. And while a bulk of that growth came with her routine and in the weight room, the reworking of her mental game is what allowed her to find success in failure.
“Understanding that there’s so much random in golf. There’s so many things that are unplanned for. As soon as you hit the golf ball, it’s out of your control,” O’Keefe said.
Improving what she can control
One of the first things O’Keefe learned at Texas was how to focus on the things she has power over to maximize her performance on the links. The Austin native dominated high school while solely focusing on golf, with her parents taking care of everything else. In college, she underwent the struggle most freshmen deal with ― learning how to be independent and responsible.
As the year went on, her upperclassman taught her the importance of the little things. Managing a healthy diet. Scheduling class, practice and workouts. Going to bed at a proper time to get enough sleep. Remembering to do all the basic chores that she wasn’t responsible for up to that point.
In the first half of her freshman season, O’Keefe rarely played as she adjusted to her new life away from her parents’ home. In the second half, though, she broke out. O’Keefe had four top-five finishes in collegiate events with an average score of 71.1. She was selected as Big 12 Freshman of the Year and won the 2024 Darius Rucker Tournament, proving herself as one of the most promising players in college.
Suddenly, winning and excellence had become an expectation for O’Keefe.
“When you focus on outcome, you very rarely will get the outcome that you’re striving for,” Texas women’s golf coach Laura Ianello said.
Focusing on the process over results
O’Keefe’s competitive nature extends beyond the golf course. She has gotten into playing pickleball for fun recently, and is quite good due to her tennis background. When she takes an occasional loss, she’ll chuck her paddle into the netting of the court out of frustration and demand a rematch.
Obsession over winning often makes athletes great. But in golf, the only thing players can control is their own shot. Ianello says players who lose sight tend to struggle, and O’Keefe said she had gotten caught up in results-based golf, instead of her process, due to her strong freshman season.
At the Austin-based Betsy Rawls Invitational in March, O’Keefe remembers feeling a deep desire to win the tournament, as it was her first college competition played on her home course. Things didn’t go her way.
“I played really terrible, right? And I still had a top 10 or whatever. But for me, I felt like I played really bad because I didn’t achieve my one goal, which was to win,” O’Keefe said.
On the surface, O’Keefe’s 2025 spring was a complete success, with six top-10 finishes in eight tournaments played. She earned All-American honors from the Women’s Golf Coaches Association for her stellar season. If O’Keefe kept winning as her only goal, she would only see the lack of first-place finishes as a failure.
But after working with Ianello, her dad Michael “Mike” O’Keefe and former PGA golfer Mike Brooks, Farah said she began focusing on the process; making sure she didn’t look up when she putt; enjoying the game and being creative with the shape of her shot, rather than worrying about hitting a specific spot on the course.
“For me, that’s really satisfying when you hit a really good shot, and maybe it didn’t go in the hole like you wanted it to, but you still hit it really solid,” O’Keefe said. “It just makes the game so fun.”
What’s expected at the U.S. Women’s Open?
Mike remembers caddying for his daughter during her U.S. Women’s Open debut. He stepped foot onto the course and saw female sports dignitaries around every corner, he told the American-Statesman. It was the first time the tournament was held at the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Links, and he and his daughter had never seen anything like it.
Things were different when they walked Sunday around Erin Hills. It felt comfortable, he said. And though he’ll be the first to tell you that losing in sports is inevitable, Mike couldn’t help but think about Farah’s chances of making it to the weekend, and her chances of winning.
“We just walked up and I’m just like, hey, this just feels like any other golf tournament,” Mike said. “If she can get into the right frame of mind and she can play at the level that she’s playing at, you never know.”
O’Keefe isn’t the same player she was a year ago. She’s entering the tournament with no expectations. The golfer likened her upcoming journey through the course to chopping wood.
Each hole is a chop. If she can make the cut Friday and walk down the 18th on Sunday having felled a few trees, it’ll be a success. If she doesn’t make the weekend, O’Keefe will have the privilege of spending the rest of the tournament watching some of the best golfers in the world.
But when O’Keefe puts the ball on the tee Thursday, the rest of the world will fade away. In order to perform at her best, she’ll stay present, ignoring the crowd, expectations and the thought of winning a major.
“It’s just me and golf ball on the course,” O’Keefe said.
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