Whatever rust she had accumulated during the winter beak, Nelly Korda shook it off this week at Lake Nona.
Korda shot 7-under 65 on Sunday to cap an 18-under performance at the LPGA’s season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. In any of the previous three editions at Lake Nona, that score would’ve won by at least two shots, but A Lim Kim birdied three of her last four holes to finish at 20 under and relegate the world No. 1 to runner-up.
It was Korda’s fifth straight top-5 finish dating to last summer’s AIG Women’s Open, where she was T-2.
“Not bad,” Korda said. “I’m never going to complain finishing second in a tournament and giving it a run, especially on a Sunday. There are definitely a couple putts I would like to have back, but overall, I think I’m very happy with this week and excited for next week.”
Korda now readies for a home game, the Founders Cup, which begins Thursday at Bradenton (Florida) Country Club. Technically, Rose Zhang is the defending champion, though that was when the event was held at Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, New Jersey; Korda was T-7 at that tournament, ending her five-tournament win streak. But most people likely consider Korda to be defending as she captured the Drive On Championship last January at Bradenton Country Club.
Korda plans to play a light nine holes on Monday. She doesn’t usually practice during tournament weeks, only some putting, maintenance and warm-up. Not that she needs to work on much.
“Definitely some areas where I feel like I need to kind of tighten up some loose ends,” Korda said. “Overall, I think I can’t complain about the state of my golf game right now.”
If Korda does any extra preparation, it could be with the new TaylorMade Qi35 driver. She put it in the bag for Thursday’s first round, but after an opening 71, she went back to her trusty Qi10 for the remainder of the tournament.
“If you’re not confident in one part of your game it kind of leaks to everything else,” Korda said Friday. “Not saying that I’m not going to put it in for the rest of the year, but there are just a couple tweaks that I want to do to it before putting it in to actually play for my whole set to be confident.”
If Korda doesn’t make the permanent switch next week, she’ll have plenty of time to groove it into her setup.
She’s set for seven weeks off as she won’t play the three Asian tournaments and will return at the Ford Championship in late March.
