By: Max Bechtoldt
Flashback to 2021, Nelly Korda is on a great run already having two wins on the season including the week before at the Meijer LPGA Classic. She gets her first major championship win at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. She rises to No. 1 in the world and would win the Olympic gold medal a month later. She appears to be the face of women’s golf.
Then, horrible injuries happen, ones that potentially even threaten Korda’s life. She does make a great recovery, winning one of the last events of 2022. Korda then plays a terrific 2023 season, one that includes no wins but she has 10 top-10 finishes.
2024 comes around and the discussion becomes bigger than just women’s golf. Nelly Korda wins five LPGA Tour events in a row, including a major, the Chevron Championship. She ties the records for most wins in a row in LPGA Tour history and stamps her place as maybe the greatest player of her generation. She now has 14 LPGA Tour wins, two majors and an Olympic gold medal. She’s getting Caitlin Clark comparisons. After one week where she finishes T7, she comes back and wins an incredible sixth tournament of the season.
That’s where the honeymoon phase ends for Korda. On her third hole of the U.S. Women’s Open, she has a 10 on a par 3, effectively taking her out of the tournament. Her next event, the Meijer LPGA Classic, she shoots +4 through three holes. She plays well the next 33 holes but ends up one stroke outside of the cut. She suddenly has two missed cuts in a row.
She comes into the 2024 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship as obviously the face of the tour. Even after two bad finishes she is the clear betting odds favorite. Korda has two top-three finishes since 2019 in this event. She did play fantastic her last 18 holes of her last tournament, but the recent trend is concerning regardless.
Korda is still the top player in strokes gained on the LPGA Tour. She is impressively top-21 in every category, including being No. 17 in putting, traditionally her game’s weakness.
This feels like a big week for Korda and the LPGA Tour in general. It is unfair to Korda to hold the development of the game on her shoulders, but a strong finish would undeniably help. Looking at the results at Sahalee Country Club, she fits the bill as a player who should perform well.
