As world No 1, she is always the woman to beat and halfway through the Women’s Open at St Andrews, Nelly Korda is living up to her pre-championship billing. A pair of 68s has the 26-year-old American on eight under and three strokes clear in the race for what would be her third major victory.
The chasing pack is almost as impressive. Among a formidable group of close challengers are the defending champion, Lilia Vu, last year’s runner-up, Charley Hull, the Olympic gold medallist, Lydia Ko, and the 2022 Women’s Open champion at Muirfield, South African Ashleigh Buhai. All are within five shots of the leader.
Which is pretty much what you might expect from players of such obvious class and all will harbour hopes of ultimate victory. At least on the evidence of the past few months, you never quite know what Korda is going to come up with next.
Rarely have the inherent vagaries of golf been illustrated with more clarity than through the year Korda has so far enjoyed and, most recently, endured. Between late January and mid-May, the Florida native played in seven LPGA Tour events and won six of them, including the Chevron Championship, her second major title. Since then, however, her form has gone from sublime to subterranean.
Consider the evidence. The last of those six victories was followed by three consecutive missed cuts. To make matters worse, two were recorded in major championships, with Korda’s first weekend off coming at the biggest event in the women’s game, the Women’s US Open. Arriving as the prohibitive favourite, she shot a spectacularly ignominious 80 in the opening round. One day later, “missed cut” was inevitably etched alongside her name on the scoreboard.
Perhaps just as peculiarly, Korda’s play in the wake of her mini-slump has been neither great nor awful, a spell of mediocrity having assumed a place in her up and down season. A tied 26th finish in yet another major, the Evian Championship, was followed by a tied 22nd at the Olympic Games in Paris. So she has everything covered in 2024, her performances veering erratically between brilliant and so-so via terrible.
“I think that’s just life in general or, you know, sports,” was Korda’s pre-tournament explanation for any and all of the above. “You’re never going to shoot straight up. You’re going to go up. You’re going to go down. I think the best part of the downs is that you learn so much about yourself. It’s always a learning opportunity and I enjoy that. I always try to think of everything in a positive mindset. Compared to the start of the year, I’ve obviously had some finishes that weren’t the best. But at the end of the day, I’m still learning and I’m still getting better from it.”
That has certainly been true so far this week. Korda has dropped only one shot in her first 36 holes. In the prevailing conditions that have provided all the traditional elements of a Scottish summer – high winds and heavy showers – that represents an extraordinary level of consistency.
“I’ve played some really solid golf, and I’m happy with that,” said Korda, who switched to a new Spider putter on the eve of this event so she could “look at something different”.
“This year I’ve won on so many different types of grasses in different types of conditions. I’ve always had to adapt. I think that is what is so fun about links golf. This week I’ve been starting shots 30 yards left of my target. I’m not a fade player normally, but I’m hitting massive fades. So I enjoy links golf a lot. And every year I get to play it, I learn a little bit more.”
