U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

October 4, 2023

Kim Keyer-Scott

Troon Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. So how many Senior Women's Ams have you played in?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Since 2019.

Q. And runner-up is -- sorry, semifinalist is your best performance?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Semifinalist is my best performance.

Q. How does it feel?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Really good. Really good.

Q. Yeah.

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: I'm just six months out of breast cancer treatment so this is all gravy and it's fun. This course was phenomenal.

Q. Can talk about what you've overcome to put yourself in a position to make this deep run?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: I've just for the last three and a half years I've just, you know, been sick and through treatment, and just weaker. You know, I was hitting like a 7-iron 110 yards or something.

But I was still playing. And then just I just got my strength back. I'm about 80% back and I feel pretty good.

Q. How proud do you feel?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Really good. Really proud. I'm very, very happy.

Q. Did you have a lot of family and people you were relaying scores back to or anything?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Oh, yeah. My husband is in Bonita Springs and we have a whole bunch of people at our golf clubs that were texting back and forth.

As soon as we were done they would be texting like, and I'd be like, all I want is a martini. Stop.

Q. Yeah. And did you have any expectations specifically or any goals specifically when you were coming into the week?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: My goal was to play well whether I got beat or not, but for me to play well.

I knew if I played well that I was going to beat some people. You know, but to take her to 19 holes, I mean, she's so good, so long. You know, she was outdriving me by 30 yards, so for me to take her to 19 holes, that was pretty cool.

Q. So do you think you played to the level that you were hoping for?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Yep, I did. I did. I feel real good about it.

Q. So now looking ahead, you're automatically exempt into 2024, 2025; what's next for you? Whether it's this summer or looking that far ahead?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Two weeks from now I go to the Southern up in Arkansas, and then Florida has this kind of Ryder Cup competition we play in. I take November off and then our Florida sort of swing starts again in December up until February. Then you take a few months off until we start the FSJ and USGA stuff again.

Q. So no rest?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: November. November and then February, March, April, that's just fun stuff with the clubs down in Florida. It's our season. You know, all my friends are back down.

Q. And then being from Florida, had you played a lot of the dessert golf coming into this?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: I have played -- actually we came out to Scottsdale in January but they wouldn't let me play. We played Troon North and TPC right before the Phoenix Open.

But other than that, I really hadn't played much desert golf. I really like it.

Q. Yeah. It looks like it suits your game, would you say?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Yeah. Yeah, and just everything about it. I just really liked it. You know, down in Florida we're at sea level, so I'm hitting a 7-iron 120 yards; here I'm hitting it 135. I'm like, yes. (Laughter.)

Q. And then in terms of the course itself, from the practice round to today how would you describe your comfort level, the way you learned the course, anything?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: I got much more comfortable with it, just being able to release the club. The greens are the most important. You had to hit certain areas of the green to have a decent putt, you know, and then learning how actually they roll out, because that's not what happens in Florida.

So anticipating that if I'm going to hit it 135 yards it's going to roll out ten or fifteen yards. Just, you know, figuring that out.

Q. Yeah. Going back to overcoming the treatments and everything, was there ever at any point anything someone told you or any messages that really resonated with you?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Yes. A friend of mine just brought over -- and it's just something she made. She is a survivor, and she just -- and it says -- she hand did it, and it says, Just hope.

I have that still on my counter. I see it every day. It's true. You know, you just don't know -- I didn't know I was every going to come back to golf because I was so weak. I said to my husband, I'm not playing golf like this. You know, I am not hitting a driver 160 yards. I'm not playing golf like this.

And that was through treatment and after surgeries and stuff. And I had complications and stuff, so...

But now I just look at it like, you know what, there are worse places to be than on a golf course. Whether you're playing good golf or bad golf, there are worse places to be.

Q. Definitely.

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: And I've been there, so...

Q. And lastly, do you have a message for any other cancer survivors, whether it's specific to golf, anything else?

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: Just never give up. You know, you got to work through it and no matter what. I had a brother who died two days after I had my surgery from pancreatic cancer, and he survived like a year and six months, which he was supposed to live six months.

Part of it was he just kept kind of just trucking on.

Q. Yeah.

KIM KEYER-SCOTT: That's what I learned from him, just keep trucking on. What's the worst that can happen, you know. You just got to keep going. You got to keep making the good choices to do your treatments and to live healthy.

You know, it is what it is. Cancer is not something you can prevent. It's just something you have to deal with and treat.