BELLEAIR, FLORIDA | When we all look back at Nelly Korda’s historic seven-win 2024 LPGA season, may we recall the whole magnificent concoction that it was, bumps and all. Frankly, her year sprinkled in a little dash of everything. Picture appearing on TV’s “Top Chef” and being asked to bake a cake using every available ingredient in the kitchen.
Korda’s 2024 season picked up triumph No. 7 the way a tumbling boulder picks up moss on Sunday at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican. She shot 14-under 266 to win by three. It was a season that author Charles Dickens would have loved. (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...”) Korda loved it, too. Every majestic and rocky inch of it.
Hopefully, when the chill of winter arrives and a fire crackles somewhere at one of those quiet annual winter offseason retreats she likes to escape to in the snow-covered hinterlands, Korda will look back on the year and appreciate it with a newfound fondness. We all should. Not just for the winning golf – and there was plenty of it, including a magical early season run in which she won in five consecutive starts, joining LPGA royalty (Nancy Lopez and Annika Sörenstam) in doing it.
Korda, 26, also will remember 2024 for the personal growth. This was the year when Korda stepped out of her tiny golf bubble, her comfort zone, much the way a butterfly leaves a cocoon. It was refreshing to watch. Sörenstam, namesake of the tournament that Korda won for a third time on Sunday, passed along advice given to her by Amy Alcott many years ago, when Sörenstam was winning about every tournament she entered. Do not forget to take time to smell the roses, Alcott told her. Enjoy it. And Korda seems to be doing that.
“You set the bar so high,” Sörenstam said, “you almost expect it every week. There is a fine line where you push yourself and still can enjoy the moment and appreciate what you’ve done.”
“With the [good] play, I’ve had these amazing opportunities, and I jumped on them.”
Nelly Korda
Seated next to the 72-time LPGA champion, Korda heeded the message the way that young kids do. “Yep,” she affirmed.
On Sunday at Pelican Golf Club, a short drive from where she lives, Korda was busily embroiled in the Hunt for No. 7, trying to capture The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican for the third time in four autumns. She was in the searing heat of contention on a Sunday afternoon at a big tournament. That is where Korda lives, and where she is most comfortable.
“I do truly love it,” she said Saturday evening before departing for a night's sleep before one last round, having clawed her way back to within one of Charley Hull’s lead.
The winning is great, and why all golfers practice so diligently. Here, we are talking about the other peripheral stuff. Such as Korda showing up to summer’s Met Gala in New York and taking pictures against the New York skyline. And taking a first dive into Sports Illustrated’s iconic Swimsuit issue, in which Korda will be when the mag hits stands in the spring. “An amazing honor,” she called it.
“With the [good] play, I’ve had these amazing opportunities, and I jumped on them,” Korda said while stopping by an insightful “Inside the LPGA” podcast with hosts Hope Barnett and Emma Talley last week. She can be hard to pin down, but Korda sat to chat for about 20 minutes after playing nine holes of a pro-am with WNBA standout Caitlin Clark. (“Just one on top of the other,” she said, laughing, thinking about the great experiences of her year.)
Playing with Clark was eye-opening in that it would be the most people Korda would perform in front of all week. Imagine, a mid-week pro-am trumping the tournament rounds. “It’s amazing to see how many people she draws to women’s sports,” Korda said of Clark.
Korda has the potential to do something similar given her platform as one of the exceptional athletes in women’s sports. Early in her career, she played the role of a reluctant superstar. With everyone else wishing they had Korda’s star-crossed life, one might wonder whether the one in the middle of living it even wanted any part of it. Fellow LPGA player Mel Reid, who dabbles in broadcasting, offered a terrific observation on Korda at this summer’s U.S. Women’s Open: Korda wishes to be a quiet star, Reid said, and live a quiet, behind-the-scenes existence. One problem, Reid observed. “Her golf is too loud.”
Korda hadn’t won in six months when she pulled into Pelican to start the week, her first start since the Kroger Queen City Championship in Maineville, Ohio, in September. She enjoys playing in Japan and Malaysia, but pulled out of two Asia starts after injuring her neck while practicing. That was after experiencing migraines at the Solheim Cup. She started hitting shots and playing golf again only a week and a half or so before Pelican, gearing up for four more starts in Florida that will bring her 2024 to an end: The Pelican and this week’s CME Group Tour Championship, the mixed-team Grant Thornton (where she will partner with Tony Finau), and the PNC Championship, where she will play once again with her dad, Petr, a former major champion in tennis.
When she thinks back to her first victory of 2024, the LPGA Drive On Championship in Bradenton in January, it almost feels like some other lifetime. “It feels like I lived nine lives since then,” Korda said. “So much has gone on since that win.”
“Sometimes, taking a step back and putting the phone away and going on vacation and realizing what you did is really nice.”
There have been the highest highs and some of her lowest lows. Beyond all the wins, there were three consecutive missed cuts in summer, two of them at majors (U.S. Women’s Open, KPMG Women’s PGA). The U.S. Women’s Open in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, appeared to be an aberration. She made a 10 on her third hole of the tournament (Lancaster’s par-3 12th), shot 80, then nearly battled all the way back a day later to make the cut.
At the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews and the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, Korda was in control of both before a few untimely swings cost her at both.
“I am actually very, very grateful for the lows,” she said at Pelican. The bad times make one appreciate the good ones.
Such as on Sunday at Pelican, where one could barely tell that Korda had weathered so many difficult times among all the good. She credits the team around her, which includes caddie Jason McDede, for sticking with her through it all.
“Sometimes, taking a step back and putting the phone away and going on vacation and realizing what you did is really nice,” Korda said.
And when you get knocked down? “You get back up,” she said.
Hey, even Korda’s newest Instagram pal, Caitlin Clark, doesn’t hit all the shots.
E-MAIL JEFF
Top: Nelly Korda celebrates after winning The Annika driven by Gainbridge on Sunday, her seventh win of 2024.
Cliff Hawkins, Getty Images