Farah O'Keefe looking for redemption in her third ANWA attempt in 2026
· Yahoo Sports
EVANS, Ga. — Over the last two years, Farah O’Keefe has steadily been improving as a golfer. Coming into her first Augusta National Women’s Amateur back in 2024, she was ranked No. 44 in the world. Two years and two top-20 finishes in the ANWA later, she’s ranked fourth coming into her third start.
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O’Keefe is arguably the hottest competitor in the field. She has won the Therese Hession Regional Challenge, Darius Rucker Intercollegiate and Betsy Rawls Invitational to start off the year.
A win in the ANWA would cement the junior from Texas as one of the brightest young stars in women’s golf. And to do that, she plans on channeling the lessons she has learned from the last two loses to propel her to victory.
“I'm trusting myself. I'm trusting my game,” O’Keefe said. “I feel like I have a lot of belief in what I've been working on, so I'm just going to go out there and see if my game stacks up against the best in the world, and if it happens to be my week, then it's my week.”
In O’Keefe’s ANWA debut, she finished T-20. The following year, she managed to finish in 10th. Her first round in 2025 was her best showing, scoring a personal-best 67. But because of that score, it changed her approach headed into the second round and beyond.
Instead of playing her game, O’Keefe said she was in “protect mode” with her swings. She was so focused on making sure she continued her strong play to make the cut for the final round that she unknowingly added extra pressure, resulting in her second-worst score in the event with a 75.
Because of the volatility of her play from round to round, O’Keefe has come into this year’s event with a new strategy: learning to let things go.
“One of the things that I've kind of gotten better at is acceptance when it's destined for things to not go your way out there,” O’Keefe said. “You get a bad bounce ― there's so much randomness in golf that you can't really account for. It's kind of just being able to accept whatever happens and know that I have the tools to face whatever comes my way and that I've put in all the work and I've put in all the practice, all the mental reps, so I'm ready to go”
Through the first round, the junior is T-23 with a score of 71. She’s still on track to make it out of Champions Retreat; she also shot 71 before scoring 76 in her debut year to move on to the final round. Her ability to compartmentalize and move on from a less-than-stellar performance will be critical in how she responds headed into the second round.
O’Keefe has many supporters watching back home as she hopes her third time at Augusta National is the charm. But there’s one person in particular that she’s really hoping can make it out to see her potentially win it all.
“Probably my dad,” O’Keefe said. “He couldn't make it this week. He had some stuff with work. He's been here the last two years. He actually caddied for me the first year. I know he'll be watching on TV. He'll have it up on his phone or whatever. So I'm not worried about that. But it would mean a lot if he was able to come out at least Saturday.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Farah O'Keefe looking for redemption in her third ANWA attempt in 2026