THE CHEVRON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 24, 2026

Farah O'Keefe

Memorial Park Golf Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Farah O'Keefe. Farah, bogey-free today. Can you talk about what was going well or maybe where you were minimizing mistakes?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, 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. I was walking in between 17 and 18 and Mark goes, birdie putt. Give us a birdie putt. I did and went in, and that was nice. That was a bonus.

Yeah, I think ball striking was kind of like b- from the fairway, but then short game, putting was A++. Kind of saved me out there.

Q. You've had a lot of TV time this week, media attention. How do you feel like you're managing to balance playing really, really well and still being yourself off the course?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, I think I just, I don't know, try to be authentic. I'm an open book. Not going to hide anything. I think -- and I also love talking. I don't know if -- 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.

Q. About the talking, what were you guys chatting about today?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Oh, my god. We talked about a plethora of random things. She keeps coming up with these stories. I don't really know. I'm just kind of like laugh and listen. Like if I tell her I'm nervous she is like, do you think Mia Hamm was nervous when she had to make the game-winning kick for the Olympics or whatever?

I'm like, probably, but she didn't look it. She's like, yeah, exactly. She keeps saying, this isn't the Olympics. You're fine. We talk about that kind of stuff. A lot of it was digesting shots afterwards, just kind of like, okay, was that a good miss, a bad miss, did I hit a good shot, why did that happen, that kind of stuff.

After that we just talk about where we're going to eat, that kind of stuff. Skierski showed up finally so we were messing around with him. We gave him my umbrella today and we saw him on a couple holes. He was swinging it. We were like, come on, dude. This is a golf tournament. You're not supposed to be doing that. You're not playing.

So that kind of made us crack up a little bit.

Q. Nine straight pars on the front nine. Have you ever -- I guess for people who maybe don't understand, that's very difficult to do. At any point were you frustrated that some putts weren't going in, or is it just always nice to steady the ship a little bit?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, I thought it was a good thing starting out. I had a good amount of looks at birdie inside of like what I would call makable, 15 to 20 feet. After nine I hit a really good shot in on nine.

I got frustrated because I missed that putt. Then I looked at Bentley and I was like, I know exactly what that is. It's not going to happen on the back nine. So I got to the back nine and things started going in. Most of them were for par, kind of par saves, but I did have three drop for birdie.

Q. You said earlier this week your mom will be here this evening.

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah.

Q. What's the first thing you guys are going to do?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Well, we've planning to go to eat at Cabo Bob's. We tried to go last night and the line was out the door and around the corner, we ended up going to Chipotle.

We are going to go to Cabo Bob's and then I'll probably just give her a really big hug. She called me last night. She was at her best friend's birthday party. There was just a bunch of people whooping and hollering in the background and it was just so fun.

Q. Seems like you have a positive outlook. You could have said coming off your round today like there is -- it seemed like you had some unlucky breaks.

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah.

Q. Instead you're saying like obviously you were able to get up and down for par so many times. What is it about the way you're kind of framing that that helps you?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, I think framing is a big thing, like you just said. Sure, I could beat up on myself and get frustrated or flustered, whatever, but that doesn't do you any good.

So just puts me back and puts me in a position why I'm feeling like I'm playing worse than I am, which I feel like I'm playing really good golf. The number is there obviously, but I feel like I'm just patient. I'm not getting ahead of myself. I'm not really dwelling on things. I'm moving forward to the next shot.

That's been my goal for the last four to five months.

Q. Obviously you're right there, but Nelly has this lead. What's the game plan in trying to chase her down?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, I don't know. I told Bentley, I compared it to Rory at the Masters. Really golf, you never know what can happen in golf. There is so much random out there that you can get a bad break and it's just kind of that thing.

I've always called it -- 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.

Q. How have you managed this week to balance being nervous because of the big stage and just enjoying how well you're playing on this stage?

FARAH O'KEEFE: Yeah, I think, I don't know, I kind of like the nerves. If you're not nervous then you're not supposed to be there. I don't know. This is what I do. This is my livelihood, my joy. I play golf, but I do more than that.

When I have the opportunity to come play in a tournament like this, I just enjoy it. I feel like everybody kind of plays better golf when they're happy anyway, so the fact that I have been so happy to be here is helping my golf game. No matter what happens it's like, well, you're playing that major. Like just smile. Just have a good time.

Q. How do you expect that joy to manifest this weekend as you do try to track Nelly down?

FARAH O'KEEFE: No, yeah, I think I am going to just stay happy. I had a really good caddie in Scotland and he just kept saying, happy days. Every time we end up in a bunker, happy days. We're good. I think that positivity, if you beat down on yourself, really if you're negative in any way it hurts you.

So I'm just grateful to be here and happy to be representing what I get to represent. I get to represent Texas, the University of Texas, my family. So I'm here for myself but I am also here for so many other different people, and I'm just enjoying that.

Q. Nelly was just up here talking about the time that she knew she wanted to do this for a living. It was when she played in her first U.S. Women's Open at 14. What's your story?

FARAH O'KEEFE: That's a good question. I reflect on that a lot. It's actually a long story. When I was I think 10 or 11 I came home from a golf tournament, U.S. Kids golf tournament. I didn't win. I played poorly. I sat down at the kitchen table on my mom's computer. I don't know what she had. I pulled up a Word document and just started writing a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish in life.

It was like -- the first one of win a U.S. Kids golf tour, like really, really small. Then got progressively bigger. I've kind of edited that list over time, and now there is like national champion, earn my card. But I didn't really know enough about the LPGA, so one of the bullet points is earn your card through the Web.com Tour when that was a thing. I left that up there because I thought it was funny.

That's in my bedroom. In my brother's bedroom because we switched rooms when we moved to college. It's on the wall. It's my list of things. I think I only have three things scratched out: Win U.S. Kids Junior Golf Tour, make it to the U.S. Kids Golf Junior Worlds, and get a scholarship. I still have a lot of blanks up there to try to finish.

Some of them are just like own a truck or buy a big house, so there is other random goals. I think that it really -- I started to love this game in a competitive aspect right around that time when I was 10, 11 years old. Really it was something that my dad told me. I remember I shot like 95 in a junior event and I was so happy after the round. I finished like sixth out of like seven girls. I was just giddy. Happy to be there.

I go out in the car and he started driving me around the golf course. It was 8:00 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. Just have the opportunity and the chance to go play the game I love at the highest level, it's really cool that I get to do that as an amateur and kind of give myself a taste early on of what that will be like.

Q. What's the biggest dream on that list for golf?

FARAH O'KEEFE: For golf, Hall of Famer. Yeah, I think I put win 20 majors on there when I was ten years old because I knew it was more than Jack. So I was like, yeah, I want to be the winningest ever. Seems like unattainable now that I played it a couple majors, but yeah, you know, dream big and then if you come up short, still pretty good.