Nelly Korda, amid another dominant run, keeping things as simple as possible at the U.S. Women’s Open
· Yahoo Sports
LOS ANGELES — Nelly Korda isn’t doing anything special. In a way, she makes her weekly routine sound boring.
Visit playerbros.org for more information.
The top-ranked golfer in the world was one of the first people on the course at Riviera Country Club on Monday morning for a practice round, which she knocked out quickly without much information on the famed Los Angeles course ahead of time. That’s typically how she starts a tournament week, especially at a major championship.
“If I’m being honest,” Korda said, “I haven’t done research at all … Sometimes too much information isn’t really good.”
She doesn’t like to grind on the range or putting green. She isn’t even glued into the sport week-in and week-out. Admittedly, Korda doesn’t “watch too much golf” herself.
She just gets in, and gets out.
But entering the U.S. Women’s Open this week, the second major of the year, Korda is again on a dominant run throughout golf similar to Scottie Scheffler on the PGA Tour or even Tiger Woods in his prime. And if all goes according to plan, Korda will not only pick up her fourth career major championship win, but she’ll have put herself just shy of historic position not even a decade into her LPGA Tour career.
Korda dominating the LPGA Tour again
Korda has three wins under her belt already this season. She opened the year with a win at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, and then she won in back-to-back starts in April. The first in that stretch was a major championship win at The Chevron Championship, an event she won by five shots, and then she cruised the following week at the Riviera Maya Open.
And in just the four events she hasn’t won, Korda was the runner-up in three of them. Her worst outing came in her last start, but it was only a T8 finish. Not bad.
“There was one movement that I didn’t really like, and I just kept doing it over and over again,” Korda said of her last start in Cincinnati.
“Beginners may think that we’re working on something like crazy, but in all honesty, we’re probably working on the same exact things we did when we started the game,” she added.
The start to the season is similar to what Korda pulled off in 2024, when she won seven times, six of which came in a seven-tournament stretch.
But between then and now, Korda had, by her standards, a pretty average campaign in 2025. While she made every cut, Korda didn’t win once last year. She had three runner-up finishes, including a T2 outing at last year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills.
“I was just hungry for more,” Korda said of her mindset after the season ended. “Last year was just a weird year of kind of not necessarily playing my best, but also when I did, not getting the bounces or just missing by a centimeter here and there. But I also learned a lot about myself. It made me hungrier to be in those positions.”
Yet instead of going in for some drastic change during the offseason, Korda kept things as simple as possible. She just took a break, and then got back to work.
“Athletes after they’ve had like a tough year, they try to reinvent the wheel and they try to change so much about their games,” Korda said. “I feel like that leads them into trouble. It makes them doubt stuff a little bit more. Maybe you just don’t feel very comfortable in your own skin after you’ve changed a lot about your game, maybe your team as well.
“I always just try to be like, okay, this works. I’m putting in the effort every single day, and I know that if I continue this path, like it will change.”
Nelly Korda picked up her third major championship win at The Chevron Championship earlier this season in Houston. (Erik Williams-Imagn Images)IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERSKorda, 27, has won three major championships in her career. She’s claimed The Chevron Championship twice, and her first came at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2021. A win this week at Riviera would put Korda on the cusp of joining just seven others who have claimed the Career Grand Slam in women’s golf. As there are five majors in women’s golf, one only needs to win four to actually earn that recognition. Inbee Park was the last to do so back in 2015.
But only one golfer, Karrie Webb, has won all five in her career. That gave her what’s called the Super Career Grand Slam. With the Evian Championship and the Women’s British Open still on the schedule for later this season, Korda is already in a fantastic position on that quest.
She’s a massive favorite entering the week, too, and is listed at +400 to win on BetMGM. Jeeno Thitikul is the next closest at +850. Korda will tee off alongside Hyo Joo Kim and Hannah Green in the first two rounds this week at Riviera, starting just before 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday.
Obviously, that talk is still premature. Play hasn’t even started yet this week, after all. But after Korda’s first few months of the season, it’s easy to understand why all eyes will be on her in Los Angeles.
And as long as she can just be in a spot to make a run at it come Sunday afternoon, Korda will consider the week a success.
“All those days, you kind of sacrifice your time at home with your friends or with family, but it’s just so worth it because there’s no better rush of emotions than being in the hunt,” she said.