Starting her seventh tournament week in a row, Kim Kaufman (Clark, South Dakota) tops the first-round leaderboard at the Four Winds Invitational, opening with a 5-under-par 67. This year on the “Road to the LPGA,” Kaufman claimed a tie for fourth at the FireKeepers Casino Hotel Championship and solo sixth at the Founders Tribute. Additionally, she made three of five cuts on the LPGA Tour including a season-best finish of T38 at the Marathon LPGA Classic presented by Dana.
“There are two ways to think about: Some girls say you always have to take your weeks off. I feel like you have to earn your weeks off,” Kaufman said. “As an LPGA player I never felt like I could take a week off when you are trying to play Asia or keep your card. We had a plan to only play Battle Creek, Toledo, and Mesa. But after Battle Creek and it was so fun, so we decided let's just keep going.”
After carding six birdies today, the two-time All-American Texas Tech alumna has finished three out of four of her first rounds under par, each leading to a top-15 finish. Looking at both her strengths and weaknesses moving forward this weekend, Kaufman aims to finish strong the next two days.
“I really like Fridays this year, which is great. I’m happy to be here because I have to work on having those good last two days,” said Kaufman. “I've talked with my mental coach and told her I'm feeling it, I’m tired, I know how it's going to play today. She said, ‘You can think of the whole thing cause it's easy to go Oh my gosh I'm tired but break it down.’ I could easily just attack the course and then go home next week, but I’m staying in it. I just have to continue to just work all the things both mentally and physically and hope that eventually I have the two weekend days I want.”
Kim Kaufman
- Born August 16, 1991
- Kaufman is a native of Clark, South Dakota
- Medalist for Texas Tech University at the 2012 Landfall Tradition
- 2013 Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) Second Team All-American
- Top five in the Golfweek/Sagarin Fall 2012 Collegiate Rankings to first earn Epson Tour membership as a 2013 rookie
- Two-time Epson Tour champion at the 2013 Island Resort Championship and 2014 Volvik Championship
- Finished T23 at the 2013 LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament to first earn LPGA Tour membership as a 2014 rookie
- Total of 149 career starts on the LPGA Tour through the 2019 season with 12 top-10 results and a career-best of T2 at 2015 Blue Bay LPGA
- Made eight cuts across 21 starts on the LPGA Tour in 2019 with a season-best T6 at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational
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