Despite not playing in any of the LPGA’s fall Southeast Asia swing due to a neck injury, World No. 1 Nelly Korda still secured the LPGA’s points-based Player of the Year award Sunday with three tournaments remaining on the schedule. It’s the first time she’s won the award, this one for her impressive, yet sometimes turbulent, six-win campaign.
Korda’s first victory of the season proved a foreshadowing moment for the LPGA’s two best players. The American closed the LPGA Drive On Championship with an eagle-birdie finish at her home course of Bradenton Country Club to get into a playoff with Lydia Ko. She then claimed the title, stopping the Kiwi from opening 2024 with back-to-back titles and earning the final point in her bid to qualify for the LPGA’s Hall of Fame.
After the initial win, Korda, 26, took the season-opening Southeast Asia swing off despite being healthy to train and get her body in shape. She returned seven weeks later, sweeping the tour’s three-week West Coast swing with a playoff victory at the Se Ri Pak Championship in March, a two-stroke triumph in the Ford Championship and a blowout 4-and-3 victory over Leona Maguire in the T-Mobile LPGA Match Play in April.
With the LPGA taking a week off before the Chevron Championship, Korda caught a brief respite before winning her LPGA record-matching fifth straight victory. At the start of the major, questions arose about whether she could elevate the LPGA with a major title. There were signs of percolating national interest when Korda did a segment on ESPN as part of her pre-Chevron tournament interviews. But after entering the company of Annika Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez with her five-in-a-row victory run, Korda’s national stature surged.
She appeared as if she’d be going for her record sixth straight win at the J.M. Eagle LA Championship the following week, the second largest media market in the U.S., but Korda withdrew on Monday. Ahead of her playing in the Cognizant Founders Cup in May for a shot to win six in a row, Korda became the first professional golfer to attend the MET Gala since Tiger Woods in 2013. The run ended with a T-7 in New Jersey.
Angel Martinez
Korda outdueled Hannah Green, a three-time winner this season, the following week in the Mizuho Americas Open for the American’s sixth win in her previous seven starts. From late January to mid-May, a total of six players had finished better than Korda in any event she played. Her game was peaking heading into major season, with a chance to shape an all-time LPGA season.
But Korda fell off her perch only three holes into the U.S. Women’s Open, making a 10 on a par 3, which started a multi-month stretch of inconsistency. She nearly battled into the weekend at Lancaster with a second-round 70 but missed her first cut of the season. Korda was a stroke off the lead following the first round of the KPMG Women’s PGA in June, then followed with a surprising 81 to miss a third straight cut, the first time she had done that in her career. She told Golfweek, “A lot went my way at the beginning part of the year, and just giving it back.”
Korda didn’t play again until the Amundi Evian Championship in July, where a T-26 felt like a stabilizing result. Korda held the 36-hole lead at St. Andrews before a T-2 in the AIG Women’s Open. The performance at the Old Course was a lead-in to Korda’s Solheim Cup success, as the domineering talent led off for the U.S. in all four sessions she played in recording a 3-1 record, serving as a pillar of the American’s first Solheim victory since 2017.
The following week, she finished T-5 in the Kroger Queen City Championship, with a planned month off before Korda would join the final two events of the Southeast Asian swing. Her minor neck injury derailed those plans.
Korda has had to take time away from the LPGA due to a health issue over the past three seasons, but her current injury will prevent her from a possible sweep of the LPGA’s year-long awards. Korda has the second-best scoring average on tour (69.92) in 49 rounds to Jeeno Thitikul’s 69.54, but to be Vare Trophy eligible, Korda needs to play at least 70 rounds, an impossibility with three events remaining on the tour’s schedule.
Korda is next slated to play at The Annika beginning Nov. 14 in Florida, where she will be grouped in a pro-am alongside WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark. She’ll close out her season the following week at the CME Group Tour Championship.
Sports Illustrated announced Saturday that Korda will be featured in its annual swimsuit issue early next year, making her the first LPGA star to appear in the magazine since Natalie Gulbis in 2012.
Main Image: Gregory Shamus
