A few of my coworkers and I spent a day with Nelly and Jessica Korda last month for the May issue of GOLF Magazine. We spent an overcast afternoon at The Yards, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., gathering video and instruction content, cover images and information for this month’s cover story.
We also invited our Instagram followers to send in some questions for Nelly to answer. For the most part, she was an open book, but she demurred on the most common question we got: What are your goals for this year?
“I don’t share my goals,” she said sternly but with a smile on her face.
I found this interesting. It’s such a common question for players, and I’d never heard someone not give an answer. I’ve asked a handful of male pros about their goals, and their answers seem to be pretty similar: win a major, make the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team and climb up the Official World Golf Ranking. Justin Thomas even shares a list of his (very specific) goals at the end of every season.
I stood there with Nelly while scrolling through a long list of questions we had solicited for her. More than half were, “What are your goals for this season?” We laughed, and Nelly said “none of your business!” She prefers to work toward her goals in silence.
Luckily for us, we still got to learn a bit about Korda through this brief Q&A.
What’s your favorite meal?
“Sushi, any Mediterranean food, Greek food. I don’t really eat pizza too much but that’s probably a cheat food for me that I really like.”
What part of your sister Jess’ game would you want to have?
“Her putting. It’s so good.”
This made me curious as to which part of Nelly’s game Jess would want to have, so we asked her as well.
What part of Nelly’s game would you [Jess] want to have?
“There’s actually two parts of her game that I would really want. One, she drives the ball super straight and two, her short game is probably the best I’ve seen.”
OK, back to Nelly.
What is your favorite childhood golf memory with Jess?
“We used to play Future Collegians World Tour events back in the day and she won her division and and I won my division and that was the first time we won the same event.”
How do you keep your focus after a bad hole?
“I’ve always just said to myself that there’s more golf to be played and by taking it one shot at a time.”
