Nelly Korda: World No 1 targets eighth LPGA Tour title of 2024 at season-ending CME Group Tour Championship

golf Wednesday 20 November 2024 11:49, UK

Nelly Korda is the dominant force in women's golf right now, and the world No 1 has the opportunity to demonstrate that once again with an eighth LPGA Tour victory of 2024 at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship this week - live on Sky Sports Golf from 8pm on Thursday.

Korda joined Kathy Whitworth (1973), Nancy Lopez (1978, 1979) and Beth Daniel (1990) as the only Americans since 1970 with seven or more wins in a single season when beating Charley Hull to The ANNIKA title on Sunday.

The 26-year-old is also the first player since Yani Tseng in 2011 to win seven times in a single season, with the first five of those victories coming in successive tournaments to see her tie Lopez (1978) and Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) for the most consecutive LPGA Tour wins.

"Honestly, it's been a crazy year," Korda said ahead of the CME Group Tour Championship. "I'm grateful for all of it. I am grateful for the highs; grateful for the lows; grateful to be doing what I love in front of people, hopefully inspiring the next generation. It's really tough to win out here against such great players."

When claiming her sixth title of the season, the Mizuho Americas Open, Korda became just the fourth player in the tour's history to win six or more times in a season before the end of May, and only the second player to do so in the last 70 years.

Yet, 2024 has not been a year of unbridled success, with some low marks thrown in, none more so than Korda's stretch of three missed cuts in a row, covering the US Women's Open - in which she carded a 10 on a par-three on her way to a 10-over-par opening round - to the Women's PGA Championship.

She won three matches out of four to help the USA regain the Solheim Cup for the first time in seven years, albeit she was roundly beaten 6&4 by Hull in the Sunday singles before gaining her revenge in Sunday's final round at The ANNIKA - her 15th career LPGA Tour win.

Korda also secured a second major title in 2024, taking the Chevron Championship as part of her early-season win streak, while she suffered an agonising near miss at the AIG Women's Open when squandering a two-shot advantage over the final five holes to finish tied for second.

Korda had not played since September due to a neck injury prior to her triumphant return at The ANNIKA in her native Florida, saying she suffered from migraines during Team USA's Solheim Cup victory as well as the week after.

The Rolex Player of the Year told reporters last week, after playing alongside basketball star Caitlin Clark in the pro-am: "The only time it was not hurting was sleep and being in a dark room and I think it led to my [neck] injury.

"In a sense, maybe I have rushed my rehab to get to these two events [The ANNIKA and the CME Tour Group Championship] as they were important to me.

"It feels like I've lived nine lives [since winning the LPGA Drive On Championship in January].

"You are put a little bit more under a microscope as an athlete when you have bad days, especially when you are a top-ranked player.

"So [it's about] knowing it's okay to have bad days and not really look at all the criticism, to believe in your talents and hard work. Not being afraid to make mistakes. I'm human.

"[I've also learnt] to enjoy life a little bit more. It goes in a blur.

"My job is the love of my life - I love golf so much, love being out here and inspiring the next generation.

"But after all that has gone on this year it is good to take a step away sometimes, take a bit more time for yourself and disconnect."

Korda's sporting prowess should not come as too great a surprise when considering her lineage.

Her father, Petr Korda, was a former tennis player from the Czech Republic, who won the Australian Open in 1998, suffered a quarter-final exit to a certain Tim Henman at Wimbledon that same year and was runner-up at the French Open in 1992.

Her mother, Regina Rajchrtova, also a Czech tennis pro, reached a world-ranking career-high of 26 in 1991 but retired two years later at the age of 24 with the birth of their eldest daughter Jessica in Florida, who paved the path for Nelly into the world of golf.

Jessica, older by five years, turned professional in 2010, with Nelly following suit in 2016. The pair became the first sisters to be partnered together at the Solheim Cup in 2019, going the week undefeated and winning the two foursomes matches for which they specifically teamed up.

But despite the sisters' best efforts, the USA would lose the Solheim Cup to Europe that year, and again in 2021 as, this time, the siblings would lose their only match when paired together.

The Kordas' younger brother, 24-year-old Sebastian, has, meanwhile, turned his hand to tennis. A Junior Boys champion at the 2018 Australian Open, the current world No 23 had his best Grand Slam run as a pro when reaching the quarter-finals in Melbourne last year.

Korda claimed her first win on tour at the Taiwan Championship in 2018, while 2021 was truly her breakout season as she secured four LPGA titles, including a first major success at the Women's PGA Championship.

That victory, by three strokes over Lizette Salas at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Georgia, catapulted Korda to world No 1 for the first time and, just two months later, she won gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Her progress was hampered, however, by the revelation of a blood clot in her arm in March 2022 that would see her miss out on that year's Chevron Championship, while persistent back problems also limited Korda's success on tour to just one victory in over two years prior to her sudden win streak to kick-start 2024.

But her recent run is far from a fluke. Following the first of her victories at the LPGA Drive On Championship, when squeezing over the line in a play-off with Lydia Ko after bogeying her final two holes, Korda opted to take the next seven weeks off to dedicate herself to a new fitness regime.

"That was an aspect that I really wanted to work on and it's been paying off quite well," Korda said at the time of her self-imposed break. "I don't want to train like a golfer, I want to train like an athlete. Thankfully my team and I, we all have the same outlook on it."

Korda is not the only American world No 1 dominating the golfing landscape at the moment, with Scottie Scheffler enjoying eerily similar success in the men's arena to start 2024.

Scheffler, just two years Korda's senior at 28, also bagged the first major championship of the year, and second of his career, at The Masters, following that up with another dominant victory at the RBC Heritage - his fourth PGA Tour win in five starts, on his way to seven for the season to match Korda's haul.

After that RBC Heritage triumph in April, Scheffler said: "One of the people here asked me, is this turning into a competition between you and Nelly... I don't know, I think if it's a competition she's got me pretty beat right now."

It is hard to argue with Scheffler's sentiment, even if said slightly with tongue in cheek, as he is no doubt all too aware of the magic touch he currently possesses around a golf course.

Asked if Scheffler could end up replicating 15-time major winner Tiger Woods' spell of dominance, Butch Harmon told Sky Sports: "He's got to do it for 19 more years [to match Woods], but right now who says he can't?"

And it is not just Scheffler who is drawing comparisons to Tiger.

Such was the ease with which Korda cruised to the third of her seven victories for the season at the Ford Championship, after a final-round 65, her swing coach Jamie Mulligan was prompted to proclaim: "That's what it looked like when he [Tiger] won.

"It looked like he played better than everyone else. She might have the best motion in the game… she's an athlete making a hard game look easy."

But is Korda's dominance good for the women's game? "I'd love to see her dominate golf," eight-time Solheim Cup player Trish Johnson said. "And the reason I want to see that is because I think that elevates everybody else.

"When you get that dominant player, like Tiger, everybody else looks at it and thinks, 'I've got to up my game, otherwise she's just going to win everything'."

Tiger, no doubt, took golf to new levels in the early 2000s... could Korda possibly do the same for the women's game? With every win, more and more are taking note.

Watch Nelly Korda in LPGA Tour at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, which starts on Thursday, live on Sky Sports Golf from 8pm. Stream the LPGA Tour, PGA Tour, DP World Tour, majors and more with NOW.