Houston– Nelly Korda Is back at world No. 1 and looks good in every way.
Korda was so untouchable at the Chevron Championship that no one could get closer than four shots to her all weekend. He played his last 29 holes at Memorial Park at even par and still won by five, the largest margin at this major in 18 years.
And she said it was the hardest time she’s ever had.
“It’s not easy to move forward with such a big lead,” Korda said. “I think that was the challenging point, like, where do I still play like Neely and where do I play a little more defensively?”
That’s why when he hit a 7-foot par putt to score 2-under 70, he was as relieved as he was happy. She captured her third major championship and returned to No. 1 in the women’s world rankings for the first time since August, taking the top spot. gino thetikul.
Korda celebrated in the best way possible — with a cannonball A 4½-foot pool formed on the right side of the 18th green to maintain this major tradition dating back to 1988, when the winner jumped into Poppy’s Pond in Mission Hills in the California desert.
“First of all,” she said, smiling while wearing the white winner’s dress. “I knew it was 4 feet, so I was expecting to fall to the ground pretty fast.”
No one else expected anything else.
With a five-shot lead at the start, Korda was efficient as ever with two early birdies and then two more birdies on the back nine to finalize this masterpiece.
Playing it safe he got a few par putts in the 6-foot range, which allowed him to settle into the third round. He made one on the 11th. He left the next shot short and his lead was reduced to four shots.
Nelly golf time.
His caddy told him he should play well to the pin on the heavily contoured green at the 13th. Korda had other ideas.
“I actually just sent it to the pin and I had a tap-in birdie,” he said.
Korda hammered a 3-wood just short of the green for a simple up-and-down putt for birdie. Then it was back to playing it safe – so conservative that instead of hitting a midiron on the par-5 16th over water, he opted to lay up with a gap wedge and then hit a lob wedge to 25 feet for a two-putt par.
It was her 17th win on the LPGA and 21st worldwide. An American had not won three majors in her career since Meg Malone in 2000, and the 27-year-old Korda is just getting started.
She doesn’t care for the comparisons with her 2024 season, when she won seven times, including a record-setting streak of five consecutive Chevron Championships.
But this is the start of a season that will have everyone paying attention. She has played in the final group in all five of her tournaments, winning twice and finishing runner-up the remaining three times. Then he achieved a big victory by taking the lead in the last 57 holes of the tournament.
Corda Nabisco joins Dinah Shore along with Julie Inkster (1989) and Amy Alcott (1991) as the only players in the past 50 years to win an LPGA major while leading by several shots after each round.
About the only drama in the final hour – the entire weekend, really – was whether Korda could break Dottie Pepper’s 72-hole scoring record that has stood since 1999. Korda was playing it safe with a big lead, hitting the green fat and settling for par with another three-putt bogey.
She finished at 18-under 270, one shy of Pepper’s record at Mission Hills.
Korda made a 25-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole on Friday and missed putts of more than 10 feet the rest of the week. That included three 4-foot misses that saved it from the blowout and it stayed in his head.
But this was part of Korda’s new approach: not to worry about mistakes, knowing she could make up for them, and she did.
“I was telling myself I really want to hoist this trophy, because I want to show the kids at home that it’s OK to miss a short putt and still win a major championship,” she said, laughing. “You’re going to make mistakes. You still have to be 100% mentally, and that’s really what I wanted to show.
“I wanted to show it to myself, and I wanted to show it to anyone who was looking at me.”
Ruoning Yin (69) and Patty Tavatanakit (70) stood second. He was the only one who could even think of getting a chance on Sunday.
Tavatanakit holed a 25-foot birdie putt on the sixth hole to get within four shots, but bogeyed a wedge on the par-5 eighth. Yin completed 56 consecutive holes without making a bogey on the 17th hole.
Korda won $1.35 million for the victory, which put her back without debate as the best in women’s golf. Now, it’s off to Quintana Roo, Mexico for the next LPGA event, will take Monday off to celebrate and will be back to work on Tuesday.
He likes competition. In this matter his competition was mainly against himself. It was a big win in many ways as she said she had self-doubt due to her missed short putts on Saturday. Korda told her caddy that she didn’t want these thoughts to come to her mind during the final round.
“I want to go out and play golf,” she said. “Whatever happens – if I jump in that pond, if I have a trophy in my hands at the end of the day – great. I give it 100%. If I don’t, I have next week. I have the week after that.
“That’s going to be my mentality for the rest of the year.”
