Nelly Korda reveals habit she can’t kick: ‘I’ve been told that I need to stop’

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THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Nelly Korda has one of the prettiest swings in all of golf. Every time she draws back the club, there’s seemingly someone there to document it. With the perfect balance of fluidity and power, there are few moves that rival hers.

“It’s like playing with Adam Scott,” Jordan Spieth said after playing alongside Korda at the PNC Championship last year. “She swings it so sweet. It will be nice to watch that tempo.”

With a swing that has one of the top players of this generation gushing, it seems like it’d be hard to find a flaw. But we are often our own worst critics, and that theme rings true with Korda.

Despite four top-10 finishes in five starts this season, the 24-year-old admitted coming into the Chevron Championship that she’s not been comfortable with her swing.

“I don’t think that I’ve had my best stuff yet,” Korda said. “So hopefully I can continue working on my game and peak in the right moments.”

So far at the Chevron Championship, it appears that plan is working. On a soggy Thursday at Carlton Woods, Korda posted a four-under 68 to sit just one back of the lead through 18 holes.

But even with that sweet swing working, Korda explained she’s been doing lots of tinkering with her swing of late. Her preferred method? Shooting — and watching — tons of videos of her swing.

“So many videos on my phone,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Unlike many LPGA pros, Korda is typically surrounded by her entire team on major weeks — parents, agent, swing coach and caddie. Away from the course when practicing, though, she normally goes at it alone.

“I have one of those tripods, do it myself,” she said. “If people knew how many swing videos I had on my phone and if I had to ask my dad to video that many swings, he would boycott every one of my practices.”

Korda estimates that she has upward of 6,000 videos of her swing on her phone. Six-thousand. The number has gotten so high that she even joked she might need to upgrade her cloud storage capacity in the near future.

“I go through a practice session and I’ll probably video maybe 20 or 30 until I really like it,” she said. “But I’ve been told that I need to stop, or I just need to delete them all and keep the one I want.”

Most swing tinkerers know the feeling. Filming your swing and breaking it down is a tantalizing practice — and it’s something that can help you immensely. The trouble comes when you get too bogged down in the video breakdowns. Most players are not good enough to digest and diagnose their flaws.

For players like Korda, though, that’s not an issue. When you’re competing for major championships, you usually have a solid grasp on the dos and don’ts of the swing.

Plus, if you had a swing like Korda’s, wouldn’t you be obsessed with watching it on repeat?

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