HOUSTON — Nelly Korda is back at No. 1 in the world and looking every bit the part.
Korda was so untouchable at the Chevron Championship that no one came close to his four shots all weekend. He played his last 29 holes at Memorial Park in par and still won by five, the largest margin in 18 years.
And it was one of the hardest times he ever had.
“It is not easy to enter and earn in this way,” said Korda. “I think it was a challenging point where, like, where do I still play like Nelly and where do I play a little bit more defense?”
That’s why there was as much relief as joy when he holed a 7-foot par putt to close at 2-under 70. She claimed her third major championship and returned to No. 1 in the women’s world rankings for the first time since August, taking the top spot from Jeeno Thitikul.
Korda celebrated in the best way possible — with a cannonball into a 4½-foot swimming pool built to the right of the 18th green to keep a tradition at this major that took place in 1988, when the winner jumped into Poppie Lake in Mission Hills in the California desert.
“Feet first,” he said with a smile, wearing a white winner’s dress. “I knew it was 4 feet, so I expected to hit the ground very quickly.”
No one else expected anything else.
Leading by five shots at the start, Korda was as efficient as ever with two early birdies and two more on the back nine to reach the final round of this masterpiece.
Playing it safe left him with a couple of par putts in the 6-foot range, which powered him into the third round. He did one at 11. He left the next short, and his lead was four letters.
Nelly’s golf time.
His caddy told him he had to play close to the pin on the heavily contoured green on the 13th. Korda had other ideas.
“I actually just sent it to the pin and I had a birdie on the tap,” he said.
Korda followed with a 3-wood hammer to shorten the green for easier birdie putts. It was back to playing it safe — so conservative that instead of hitting a mid-iron on the par-5 16th over the water, he opted to lie with a gap wedge and hit a lob wedge to 25 feet for a par putt.
The victory was his 17th on the LPGA and 21st worldwide. Not since Meg Mallon in 2000 has an American achieved three major victories in her career, and 27-year-old Korda is just getting started.
It’s not surprising to compare to his 2024 season, where he won seven times, including a record five in a row in the Chevron Championship.
But it’s the start of the season that will catch everyone’s attention. He has played in the finals of all five of his tournaments, winning twice and finishing second three times. He then won a major by leading the final 57 holes of the tournament.
Korda joined Juli Inkster (1989) and Amy Alcott (1991), both at Nabisco Dinah Shore, as the only players in the past 50 years to win LPGA majors when they led by multiple shots after each round.
About the only drama in the final hour — all weekend, really — was whether Korda could break Dottie Pepper’s record of 72 goals that had stood since 1999. Korda was playing it safe with a big lead, hitting the green oil and getting used to pars, and another three putt bogey.
He finished at 18-under 270, one short of Pepper’s record at Mission Hills.
Korda made a 25-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole Friday and didn’t make another putt more than 10 feet all week. That includes a 4-foot miss that kept it from exploding, and landed on his head.
But that was part of Korda’s new vision: Don’t worry about the mistakes, he knows he can cover them up, and he did.
“What I told myself is that I want to lift this trophy because I want to show the kids at home that it’s okay to miss short putts and win the big title,” he said with a laugh. “You’re going to make mistakes. You have to mentally still be in it 100%, and that’s really what I wanted for the show.
“I wanted to show myself, and I wanted to show everyone who was looking at me.”
Ruoning Yin (69) and Patty Tavatanakit (70) tied for second. They were the only ones who could even think of getting a chance on Sunday.
Tavatanakit birdied 25 feet on the sixth hole to get four shots back, only to bogey with a wedge on the par-5 eighth. Yin went 56 consecutive holes without a bogey until he made one on the 17th.
Korda won $1.35 million for the victory that put her back as the undisputed leader in women’s golf. And now it’s off to the Gulf Coast of Mexico for the next LPGA event, taking Monday off to celebrate and returning to work on Tuesday.
He likes to compete. In this case, he was very much in competition with himself. It was a big win in many ways because he had doubts when he missed those short putts on Saturday. Korda told his caddy he didn’t want those thoughts to enter the final round.
“I want to go out and play golf,” he said. “Whatever happens — if I jump in that pool, if I have the trophy in my hands at the end of the day — then it’s great. I gave it 100%. If I don’t, I’ve got next week. I’ve got next week.
“That will be my mindset for the rest of the year.”
