HOUSTON — Nelly Korda’s major championship season opened with stress, and with everybody holding their breath.
Starting on the par-4 tenth at Memorial Park, Korda confronted a six-foot sliding putt for par. Miss it, and the World No. 2 would begin the Chevron Championship with an inauspicious bogey and fall behind the eight-ball out of the gates, leaving everybody questioning if a repeat of a shaky 2025 main season was on deck. She took a deep breath and calmly rolled it in the coronary heart. Another seven-foot par putt awaited her on her second gap of the day, the par-3 eleventh, and as soon as once more Korda answered the bell.
Just as the LPGA wanted her to.
It’s unfair to place the tour on Korda’s shoulders. But she’s the greatest star in the ladies’s sport and as the LPGA continues to chase inroads with new audiences, it wants its greatest needle to be a draw on its greatest weeks.
The LPGA needed Nelly Korda to provide electricity this week at Memorial Park. After two gritty par saves to start out her championship, Nelly Korda delivered.
She birdied No. 12 and No. 16 to show in 2-under. Then, she hit the fuel. Korda stuffed a wedge into the par-5 first to get to three beneath after which hit a 5 iron on the par-3 second gap to 5 toes for one other birdie.
“I hit that one good,” a beaming Korda stated after her spherical. “Those are the shots that you’re like, oh, God, I love golf.”
Another birdie adopted at the third to get Korda right into a tie for the early lead. After three straight pars, Korda arrived at the par-3 seventh gap and hit a towering 6 iron to 5 toes for one other birdie. A closing birdie at the par-5 eighth meant Korda signed for a gap spherical of seven beneath and a two-shot lead. It was the second-lowest opening spherical in a significant of Korda’s profession and her first bogey-free spherical in a significant since the second spherical of the 2024 AIG Women’s Open.
A 12 months in the past, Korda was going by the early a part of a “weird” and winless 2025 season. It was a marketing campaign that noticed her actually contend at solely one in every of the 5 majors. It was irritating but additionally served as a reminder for Korda that she already has all she needs. She has lengthy held the key to her personal success and has the help system round her to maintain her secure in the downturns that naturally arrive in the world {of professional} golf.
“I would say that you receive a lot more criticism when you’re on top of the game, and having a tight-knit circle, you’re very grateful for the people you have around,” Korda stated at final 12 months’s CME Group Tour Championship. “The circle does get a little smaller, but I think I have an amazing circle. I would say I’m extremely, extremely lucky for the people that I have around me. At the end of the day, the life that we live and performing in front of people, it is super important to have that stability in your life.”
That circle, and the consistency in it, have helped Nelly Korda discover Nelly Korda to this point this 12 months. After continually ending on the mistaken facet of golf’s “fine line” in 2025, Korda received again to work. She refined her schedule, stored the pedal down practising together with her longtime coach David Whelan in the offseason, made positive her physique was prepared for the grind of one other season and stored her circle the identical.
All of that has seen Korda begin the 12 months with a win at the weather-shortened Tournament of Champions, adopted by three straight runner-up finishes heading into the 12 months’s first main. Her sport and thoughts are the place they must be.
“With golf, I feel like you can put in the work,” Korda stated on Tuesday earlier than the event. “Like I always say, control what you can control, and am I working hard? Am I putting in the effort every single day mentally and physically? Other than that, I can’t control anything. I can’t control the weather. I can’t control what other girls do, what other girls shoot. I can’t control if I hit a good shot, and I’m in a divot.
“Like there are so many things on this game that you just can’t control. I try to just take that all out of my mind and be like, Okay, I am going to focus on what I can control, and that’s it.”
Nelly Korda managed all she might to be prepared for this week. She took final week off to work extra with Whelan and introduced her placing coach David Angelotti out to Houston for the week. She performed 18 holes on Monday after which putted on moist greens on Tuesday as soon as the thunderstorms had handed. She noticed a protracted, demanding golf course that performed to her strengths. All that was important to what transpired Thursday.
But Nelly Korda is additionally free and unfastened. The frustrations of final 12 months are flushed. She’s opened the season on a tear and is now already two pictures forward on a course she simply ripped aside in the opening 18 holes.
“I’m just happy,” Korda stated after her spherical, about the totally different emotions this 12 months brings earlier than praising each member of her workforce, from Whelan to longtime caddie Jason McDede. “I think just there is a comfort and happiness inside me that makes me happy on the golf course.”
A free and simple Nelly Korda has been unleashed this week in Houston. That’s bad news for the remainder of the field — however precisely what the LPGA wanted.
