On Thursday evening at the 2025 Chevron Championship, Nelly Korda appeared to be heading to an embarrassing early exit in her title defense. But then Korda pulled off a miraculous charge to not only make the cut but set up a potential comeback victory on Sunday.
Korda’s disastrous Chevron start
Last year, Korda stretched an incredible winning streak to five with her triumph at the Chevron Championship.
It also represented the World No. 1’s second-career major victory, which had added importance because Korda had shown a tendency to falter on the biggest stages.
So heading into this year’s Chevron, Korda was hoping to ride her momentum from last year to a repeat victory and third major title. But Korda’s repeat attempt went off the rails early.
She made four-straight bogeys early in her opening round on holes 3-6, then added two more bogeys on the back nine for a shocking five-over 77.
That left Korda 13 shots off the lead and even well back of the projected cut line.
Korda makes epic comeback
And the hits kept coming in Friday’s second round, at least at first. Starting on the back nine, Korda made back-to-back bogeys at 11 and 12 to fall to seven over.
At that point, she was a distant six shots off the cut line of one over. If a missed cut wasn’t guaranteed after Thursday’s round, it was now.
But just when Korda’s hopes seemed completely dashed, she dug down and trusted her elite talent to pull off a miracle comeback.
Still seven over when she finished the 16th hole, her seventh hole of Round 2, Korda suddenly reeled off three birdies in a row on holes 17, 18 and 1.
With her score improved to four over, the cut line was now in sight. Still, she had to make up three strokes in her final eight holes, a tall feat for any player.
It wasn’t tall enough for Korda, though. She birdied the par-5 4th to move to three over, then the 6th to get within one shot of the cut line.
At the par-5 8th, she added a sixth birdie to reach the mark, then made a gutsy par at the 9th to finish off a 68 and survive to play the weekend.
Defending champ keeps rolling in Round 3
While Korda’s incredible cut line charge should not be dismissed, it still left her eight shots off the lead with 36 holes to play.
But early on Saturday, Korda proved she wasn’t satisfied with simply making the cut. Beginning again on the back nine as she had on Friday, Korda kept the birdie train rolling at 11, 13 and 16 to move to two under for the tournament.
At that point, she had climbed all the way from rock bottom at seven over to get within four shots of the leaders.
