Last month, Nelly Korda barely curled in a three-foot putt to win the U.S. Women’s Open. It was her second consecutive major win and set off a “scrappy” LPGA plan to market the best player in the women’s game as we entered what was believed to be “The Summer of Nelly.”
After starting the season 1-2-2-T2-1-1-T8-1, there was every reason to believe that Nelly Korda’s rampant tear would continue. She was heading to Hazeltine Golf Club, a golf course that suits her strengths, for the KPMG Women’s PGA and then overseas for the Evian and AIG Women’s Open. Other than the Evian, where Korda has struggled, the schedule set up well for Korda to continue to lap the field while adding to her major total and punching her ticket to the LPGA Hall of Fame.
But Nelly Korda has cooled since her win at Riviera Country Club.
A frosty putter saw her unable to catch Haeran Ryu at Hazeltine. She then missed the cut at the Evian and just finished T16 at the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open, recording just one under-par round at Dundonald Links ahead of next week’s AIG Women’s Open. Golf is a sport of ebbs and flows; even the world’s best are not immune to down stretches. Korda knows this well. She won seven times in 2024 and went winless last year while playing at a similar level from a statistical standpoint.
But there’s a better way to understand Nelly Korda’s recent dip after a blistering start.
Last week at the Open Championship, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler sat at the dais and discussed a frustrating season that has seen him win only once while racking up the near-misses. He had just missed his first cut in 78 tournaments — doing so on the same weekend that Korda missed the cut at the Evian — and explained how being in constant contention can wear you down, even if you win. Scheffler likened it to an NFL team that constantly goes deep into the playoffs but eventually runs out of gas and has to reset.
“I feel at peace, yeah. I think sometimes it’s not like — it’s never the best thing to miss a cut, but like I said, sometimes having a couple days off, resetting, getting some time away — throughout the year, it’s like — when you look at other sports and if you look at a football team that’s made it really far each year in the NFL, it’s really hard to continue to do that each and every year.
“I think just towards the end of the season, you get a little tired. Like I said, I got a couple days off, reset. Reset the mind. Reset the body. And just kind of get back to feeling even and at peace.”
Then Scheffler explained that everything that comes with being a star — while they are all good things — can be taxing and eventually become a weight that you must learn to navigate.
“I think it’s more just like mentally, especially in this day and age, there’s just a lot of noise all the time at golf tournaments,” Scheffler said. “I think golf is unique in a sense, too, with the mental grind the sport entails. There’s just a lot more stuff that’s going on at tournaments.
“I think, just being in the spotlight all the time puts a burden on a player in this day and age. Everything is being recorded. When they say hello to you, they’ve got their cell phone out. Sometimes you can be like you’re walking on eggshells a little bit, and that can drain people.”
That’s a reality Nelly Korda knows all too well.
She started the season on fire. She won and won and won. She achieved a lifelong dream and then went on a media tour in service of growing women’s golf. The spotlight had never been brighter. She arrived at the KPMG just two points away from the Hall of Fame, but she made sure the exact distance between her and that goal was unknown. Because Nelly Korda knows the burden Scottie Scheffler described, she tries to limit the distractions as much as possible, knowing that she’ll already have to deal with everything else that comes with being women’s golf’s biggest star.
“I kind of like to be oblivious about it in that way,” Korda said at Hazeltine about not knowing what she needed to get to the Hall of Fame. “I know a lot about the stuff that I want to know about, but this, I don’t want to put extra pressure on myself. I feel like the game of golf is already hard enough. If I add more pressure on myself then it’s going to be even harder. I think it’s an amazing accomplishment and it would be one of the best achievements of my career, for sure.”
Korda left Hazeltine and missed the cut at the Evian. After that, she took a week off and headed to Prague to reset before heading into the year’s final major. Just as Scheffler did after missing the cut at the Scottish Open, Korda did what she could to take advantage of her time away from the spotlight, knowing that she’ll be returning to it shortly.
“One, recharge the batteries,” Korda said of her week off in Prague. “You live a little bit of a normal life for one week. It’s my second home. Obviously I have a home base there, so I can also practice and really kind of get back to my roots.”
Korda opened with an even-par 72 at Dundonald and made the weekend but never contended as Jenny Shin won her first tournament in 10 years. After shooting a final-round 69, Korda turned her attention to next week’s AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. A T16 finish won’t move the needle for Korda, but it was a valuable week as she prepares for a links golf test that will give her another chance to get into the Hall of Fame and complete the LPGA’s career Grand Slam (winning four of the five majors).
“Very up-and-down week,” Korda said on Sunday. “It was nice to finish with a good round on Sunday leading into next week, but I think any time that you get to play in this kind of weather right before the British, it’s great prep and you know what you’re going to get. So experienced everything this week: sunshine, a little bit of warmth, and sideways rain, gusty winds. But that’s a given out here. So just trying to get into the mindset for next week.”
Scottie Scheffler knows what Nelly Korda has to navigate on a weekly basis, the weight it creates and how important managing it is in order to maintain the elite level of play that has defined both of them over the last few years. Scheffler parlayed his rare weekend away into a T4 finish at the Open, narrowly missing out on a chance to grab a fifth major.
Nelly Korda has cooled off since she left Riviera. That was to be expected given the unprecedented heater she was on and the weight that often comes with transcendent moments. Every win, every achievement adds more eyeballs, more asks, more of a burden. That’s the price of superstardom. A toll both Scheffler and Korda are familiar with.
After a week of unburdening in Prague and a respectable re-entry in Scotland, Nelly Korda now faces the biggest question of her season — one Scheffler dealt with last week at Royal Birkdale: Can the best player in the world finish her major season by doing the hardest thing in golf and win when everyone expects her to?
That’s a burden only a few carry.
