‘I’m Just Going to Vibe With It’: Nelly Korda One Shot Back at Chevron Championship
Korda enters the week on a four-event winning streak, and she’s in prime position at the first women’s major of the year.
With all due respect to recent Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, the hottest player in golf is competing just outside Houston this weekend.
And through 36 holes, she’s in position to ring up a fifth straight victory.
Scheffler has been incredible on the PGA Tour, but on the LPGA no one has beaten Nelly Korda for four consecutive events. On Friday at the Chevron Championship, the first women’s major of the year, Korda didn’t play her cleanest round but still shot a 3-under 69 to move to 7 under for the event, leaving her in prime position heading into the weekend: one shot back.
“It takes a lot of patience to win. At the end of the day the person that makes the least amount of mistakes or recovers the best from their mistakes ends up usually winning,” she said.
Korda actually opened her second round with a double bogey that would shake the confidence of a player who doesn’t happen to possess supreme confidence entering that moment. Korda, as one might expect, was unfazed.
“I actually didn't feel bad at all,” she said of her opening double. “Sometimes when you start to make mistakes you just don't really feel confident or you don't feel that great. But I just kind of told myself that it's the first hole of the tournament today. Even though I may have made a double, I wanted to save a bogey. There is still so much golf to be played and there is still a good bit of gettable par-5s.
“So that's usually what I think about, is just the opportunities that I have ahead.”
After her opening wobble, Korda made birdies on 2 and 4, and after a bogey on 7 she bounced back with birdies on 8 and 9. She went bogey-free on the back nine thanks in part to a nice par escape on 14, when she drove it into thick grass right of the fairway, hacked out and drained a 12-footer that took a 360-degree trip around the rim before dropping.
Korda is the first American to win four straight LPGA events since Nancy Lopez won five in a row during her nine-win rookie season in 1978.
Jin Hee Im and Atthaya Thitikul share the 36-hole lead at 8 under. Hae Ran Ryu is 6 under and solo fourth, two back of the lead and one behind Korda. Thitikul could be the most formidable of that group, as she entered the week No. 10 in the women’s world rankings and was the 2022 Rookie of the Year.
But for now all eyes remain on Korda as she chases he 13th career title, fifth in a row and second major.
"I'm just at the halfway point right now. The amount of golf that I've played, I still have that to go. There is still a lot of golf left and anything can happen,” she said.
“Just going to stick to my process and vibe with it, is what my coach says.”
