THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

June 16, 2022

Peter O'Keefe

Quick Quotes

Q. You're into the quarterfinals. You must be amazingly satisfied with your week so far?

PETER O'KEEFE: Yeah, I am, to be quite honest, I've been playing pretty rank golf all season. Wasn't even going to come because I played brutal in a tournament back home last week, and we said we would make a family holiday out of it. Just, you know, put my head down. I had a really good year last year, and it just seemed to escape me. But there's some good stuff, particularly today, coming back again.

So looking forward to tomorrow.

Q. It's a really good time for things to come right.

PETER O'KEEFE: This is the dream, you know, so it's worth showing up at least, and I played okay in qualifying. Got it going in places and just kind of played smart golf here the first few days and then played lovely today. Hit some really good golf shots. So I was happy with that.

Q. You mentioned the family are here. How special to bring them on board?

PETER O'KEEFE: Yeah, it would be everything. It's A holiday in their mind, and I'm playing golf all day and my poor wife is minding our 1 and 3-year-olds for the day which is great craic.

So we are doing bed-hopping and there's people waking up in the middle of the night and all that jazz. I'm probably the only player dealing with that this week, safe to say. I love when they come. It's doing something to my performance, so that's a good thing.

Q. With family comes maturity, and how much of an advantage do you think that is over the younger golfers if you can keep progressing and putting pressure?

PETER O'KEEFE: It is, and I say to a lot of younger guys I work with, it's all about attitude and I'm seeing good and bad attitudes here this week. You'd love to shake them, but they learn eventually. I've been true to the golfing ringer for a long, long time and I think my experience and attitude hopefully will stand me this week. That's the plan.

Q. And if it does stand the test of time, the 150th Open Championship is not far away. What would it mean to you to play in that event?

PETER O'KEEFE: That would be the dream for me. Back in my professional days, I've missed two Opens by one shot and pretty sad situations. But it would be lovely to come through here and play St Andrews.

Q. When did you end your professional career and turn amateur?

PETER O'KEEFE: When I ran out of money, really, in 2013. I treated it as a business and just stopped the beating and went back amateur and came back amateur in 2016 with no major aspirations, just to play, and won the Irish Amateur Open in 2017 and just kicked on from there.

Q. Quite the round story if it was to come true.

PETER O'KEEFE: It is, at the end we'd have a good chat.

Yeah, I've been kind of down every road in golf. It's the competition I love. My playing partner asked me going on to 15 green what age I was, and I said "40." And I said, "What age are you?"

He was like, "40?"

I says, "Yeah. What age are you?"

And he said "20." He was just confused. Maybe that got the edge on him towards the ends. Totally confused. He said I was rare. But anyway, there we go.

Q. Rare is a nice way to put it. What are you up to outside of golf now? What are you doing since becoming amateur?

PETER O'KEEFE: I'm involved in fitness businesses. So I have my own brand called Golf Strong. I do a lot of online golf fitness, and I have gyms in different golf clubs and involved in an F45 gym back in Cork. First business we've opened there. I'm involved in health and fitness, so rolls in nicely around the golf as well.

Q. You told me that you hold a piece of Irish golfing history alongside Pádraig Harrington.

PETER O'KEEFE: Last year, I think I was the only player since Pádraig in '95 to win the Irish Amateur Open and Close in one year.

So I had a really nice year last year. It's like I've been playing golf with someone else's arms all year. But I think it's starting to come together now. So let's see how it goes.