All the talk will be about Nelly Korda’s seven (and counting) wins in 2024 — and that’s for good reason. But what happened between them will ultimately shape her continued charge into the LPGA history books.
Korda won her 15th LPGA Tour event this weekend at The Annika, adding a seventh victory to her decorated 2024 tournament resume. Recently crowned the Rolex Player of the Year, Korda emerged on top of the leaderboard for the first time since May. She grabbed the win with a lingering neck injury that took her out of the LPGA’s fall Asia swing. Before teeing it up at Pelican Golf Club outside of Tampa, Fla., Korda hadn’t played competitively since late September.
Yet she still pulled out the victory, firing five consecutive birdies on the back nine Sunday, beating world No. 11 Charley Hull, Weiwei Zhang and Jin Hee Im by three shots. Playing close to her hometown of Bradenton, Korda was greeted by her brother, tennis professional Sebastian Korda, who drove an hour and 40 minutes to catch her winning putt.
Korda is the first American since Beth Daniel in 1990 to win seven LPGA Tour titles in one calendar year and the first player since Yani Tseng in 2011. She has a chance at an eighth title and a big payday this week: The CME Group Tour Championship, the LPGA’s season-ending event, kicks off this week in Naples. Korda’s game fits the Black Course at Tiburon Golf Club excellently: In seven appearances at the tournament, Korda has three top-five finishes, and she’s only finished outside of the top 10 once. The winner will take home a record $4 million.
The floodgates first opened in January in a similar setting: Korda edged past Lydia Ko in a playoff to win the LPGA Drive On Championship in Bradenton. A two-month tournament hiatus later and Korda was back on the course, dominating again. From March 21 to April 21, Korda played four events and won them all: the Seri Pak Championship, the Ford Championship, the T-Mobile Match Play and her second major victory, The Chevron Championship. Her streak ended with Rose Zhang’s return to the winner’s circle at the Founders Cup, but Korda came storming back just one week later, winning at Liberty National. She knocked off six wins in seven starts.
The highlights that made @NellyKorda a 15x LPGA Tour Winner 🏆
She finished at -14 😮💨
WATCH ⬇️ https://t.co/mf7RVkHOV7
— LPGA (@LPGA) November 18, 2024
Missed cuts aren’t anything to panic about in professional golf — bad weeks happen even for the best. But Korda’s inability to make the weekend for three consecutive events after her stunning win streak, including at the U.S. Women’s Open and the KPMG Women’s PGA, sounded alarm bells. Korda shot 80 at Lancaster — with a 10 on one hole — and 81 after an opening round 69 at Sahalee. At the season’s final major, the Women’s Open, Korda let a two-major season slip away with a late-round implosion at the Old Course. “Listen, it’s golf,” she said at St. Andrews. “I’m going to mess up, and unfortunately I messed up over the weekend twice in two penalizing ways coming down the stretch.”
Looking at the numbers alone, it’s hard to fathom that during a historic season, such a talented player could begin to think the sport they are unquestionably dominating feels impossible. But apparently, that’s exactly what Korda experienced.
GO DEEPER
Caitlin Clark’s morning on the LPGA Tour: Shanked shots, pured drives and so many fans
On the Wednesday before The Annika, the 25-year-old told the LPGA’s official podcast that she sunk to quite a significant low this summer, during which her game started to spiral. Korda was playing scared — any competitive golfer’s worst nightmare, often the source of compounding errors — and didn’t look or feel like herself.
“I got into a funk in the middle of the season where I was playing really well, and I don’t want to take it for granted but it was just clicking, right? I was just flowing with it. And then in the middle of the season it felt like the hardest thing in the world, all the criticism that you hear but you don’t want to look at. It’s tough to deal with,” Korda told podcast co-hosts Emma Talley and Hope Barnett.
“It made me afraid to make mistakes, but to the point where … I started making more mistakes because I was so afraid of it. I just had to tell myself, I’m a human being, I’m going to have good days and I’m going to have really bad days, and it doesn’t define me. I can’t be afraid of making these mistakes because it’s just going to eat me alive.”
Nelly Korda has won three times at The Pelican’s LPGA event. (Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images)
In May, immediately after that incredible six-win stretch, it would be unfathomable to think Korda would craft a quasi-comeback arc during her 2024 season. Yet, in a way, that’s what she did. After a machine-like opening to the year, Korda faced on-course demons and bodily limitations. She withdrew from an event over the summer after suffering a dog bite and dealt with migraines and her eventual neck injury into the fall. But she pulled herself out of that rut.
“I feel like I’ve lived nine lives since January,” the world No. 1 said. “This year has been crazy. It’s been amazing, but it’s also tested me so much. I’ve gone through some of the lowest lows to the highest of highs.”
It says a lot that Korda shared those details about her midseason struggles before coming back and winning again at The Annika. The valleys in Korda’s whirlwind of a season seem to have been more personally impactful than her peaks. She didn’t need this seventh win to come to that conclusion.
“I realized what really matters truly in life, you know, through the tough times,” Korda said after her victory. “I would say you’re not really grateful for them. You’re like, why me? Why is this happening to me? Here we go again. But you have to be grateful for those times because they do help you grow.”
(Top photo: Douglas P. DeFelice / Getty Images)