A year ago, Kim Kaufman was sitting at home, trying to piece together how her life would unfold. Her reports had come – she had breast cancer. After that, life went for a swirl. But Kaufman anchored through. Today, she’s preparing herself for the final stage of LPGA Q-School. The comeback is indeed inspiring, but one can’t deny the emotional complications. Because while Kaufman fought through chemo, radiation, and months of rebuilding her game, the hardest part she admits was something else.

“Everyone obviously wants to talk about having cancer, which was awful,” Kaufman said after advancing through the second stage of Q-School in Venice, Florida. “But you know, since then, it was actually a weird year in the sense that I have been home almost since June, really practicing. I’ve had a ton of time to prepare. Maybe almost too much time.”

Kaufman’s words reveal the other side of cancer-survivors, the one that is often not captured by the glamour of tenacity – the fatigue of being defined by your illness. The veteran, now 34, is cancer-free and among 50 players moving on to the LPGA Qualifying Series in December. And as moving as it sounds, there was a time when she did not think she would reach this stage.

Kaufman’s journey began in late 2024, shortly after she had wrapped up her Epson Tour season. It was a seemingly normal day until she noticed something – a small dimple on her breast. Concerned, she scheduled a checkup. When the results came, she found out that she had stage 2b of invasive ductal carcinoma. What was worse was that it came with one affected lymph node and a genetic mutation, which was going to influence her treatment plan.

A few weeks later, she underwent a lumpectomy in November 2024. The surgery was successful, but her struggles had just started. All this while, the golf world rallied around her as, from January through April of this year, Kaufman underwent chemotherapy – six cycles.

“The treatment process introduced significant changes to my daily routine. I underwent chemotherapy, which required adjustments to my schedule and physical well-being. Additionally, the emotional toll of the diagnosis and treatment necessitated a shift in my mental approach to daily activities,” she shared recently.

After chemo came seven weeks of radiation therapy, which ended in early June. But that brought its own lingering exhaustion. By the time her doctors told her she was cancer-free, Kaufman said she felt both relief and disorientation. It was a realization that surviving the disease hardly makes things normal. Like Kaufman, Joel Dahmen also felt the same difficulty in reliving his testicular cancer story.

In a piece Dahmen wrote for the PGA Tour back in 2022, he said, “I immediately went into this state of like … denial. This can’t be happening. Not to me. There was no way to shake the feeling of knowing exactly what it was, though. For two weeks, I just tried to will it away. Hoping the lump might not be there the next day. But that’s just not how it works. And it made me almost angry in a way — like it all just seemed unfair.” Kaufman, too, must have felt the same feeling that made it difficult for her to talk about it.

But sometimes you have to push through. After her treatment was over, Kaufman returned home to Texas and began the painstaking process of rebuilding her swing, her stamina, and her lost confidence. And finally, that preparation paid off this month. Kaufman shot a 4-under par to finish tied for 29th, a score that comfortably sat her inside the top 50 of a 194-player field.

Looking ahead, Kaufman plans to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy due to her genetic mutation and family history. This step, she believes, will give her long-term peace of mind. But for now, her focus is on golf as she looks to return to full-time status in 2026. Meanwhile, her awareness of breast cancer runs side by side.

Kim Kaufman’s mission beyond the green

In the month since her cancer detection and the completion of her treatment, Kaufman has transformed her personal battle into a platform for other young girls to look after themselves. Just weeks after she found out about her cancer diagnosis, she was out there urging girls to get a full health check-up done.

“If I get one girl to go to their yearly [exam], that’s worth it. As corny as I used to think that sounds sometimes. Everyone I’ve told, I’m like, ‘Do you go? Do you go?” Kaufman told Golfweek last year. Her advocacy involves urging women under 40 to schedule annual checkups.

But her work goes beyond mere words. At the 2025 Hartford HealthCare Women’s Championship, Kaufman partnered with the event sponsor to organize complimentary breast exams, skin-cancer checks, and cardiovascular screenings for Epson Tour players. Many of these players, Kaufman noted, come from countries where preventive healthcare is not routine.

“It’s not in their protocol to really do an exam every year. There are Americans that don’t do it, there are definitely other countries that don’t, so if we can just have these 150 girls do it … I’m hoping and thinking everyone will be fine, but if it’s not, like me, then you wanna catch it early,” she said, explaining the rationale behind her motive.

And just this month, she collaborated with the ‘Play For Her’ fundraiser to raise money for oncological research for a vaccine for breast cancer. Due to all these efforts, Kaufman received the Heather Wilbur Spirit Award for her “courageous battle against Breast Cancer.”

Now cancer-free, Kaufman will keep up with her ambition to help girls avoid what she had to endure.