Nelly Korda: World No 1 targets eighth LPGA Tour title of 2024 at season-ending CME Group Tour Championship | Golf News

Nelly Korda is the dominant drive in ladies’s golf proper now, and the world No 1 has the chance to reveal that when once more with an eighth LPGA Tour victory of 2024 on the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship this week – stay on Sky Sports activities Golf from 8pm on Thursday.

The numbers behind Korda’s triumphant 2024

Korda joined Kathy Whitworth (1973), Nancy Lopez (1978, 1979) and Beth Daniel (1990) as the one Individuals since 1970 with seven or extra wins in a single season when beating Charley Hull to The ANNIKA title on Sunday.

The 26-year-old can also be the primary participant since Yani Tseng in 2011 to win seven occasions in a single season, with the primary 5 of these victories coming in successive tournaments to see her tie Lopez (1978) and Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) for essentially the most consecutive LPGA Tour wins.

“Honestly, it’s been a crazy year,” Korda stated forward of the CME Group Tour Championship. “I’m grateful for all of it. I am grateful for the highs; grateful for the lows; grateful to be doing what I love in front of people, hopefully inspiring the next generation. It’s really tough to win out here against such great players.”

When claiming her sixth title of the season, the Mizuho Americas Open, Korda grew to become simply the fourth participant within the tour’s historical past to win six or extra occasions in a season earlier than the top of Might, and solely the second participant to take action within the final 70 years.

But, 2024 has not been a yr of unbridled success, with some low marks thrown in, none extra so than Korda’s stretch of three missed cuts in a row, masking the US Girls’s Open – wherein she carded a ten on a par-three on her strategy to a 10-over-par opening spherical – to the Girls’s PGA Championship.

She received three matches out of 4 to assist the USA regain the Solheim Cup for the primary time in seven years, albeit she was roundly crushed 6&4 by Hull within the Sunday singles earlier than gaining her revenge in Sunday’s closing spherical at The ANNIKA – her fifteenth profession LPGA Tour win.

Korda additionally secured a second main title in 2024, taking the Chevron Championship as a part of her early-season win streak, whereas she suffered an agonising close to miss on the AIG Girls’s Open when squandering a two-shot benefit over the ultimate 5 holes to complete tied for second.

Korda’s had ‘9 lives’ throughout outstanding run

Korda had not performed since September as a consequence of a neck damage previous to her triumphant return at The ANNIKA in her native Florida, saying she suffered from migraines throughout Group USA’s Solheim Cup victory in addition to the week after.

The Rolex Participant of the Yr advised reporters final week, after enjoying alongside basketball star Caitlin Clark within the pro-am: “The one time it was not hurting was sleep and being in a darkish room and I believe it led to my [neck] damage.

“In a way, perhaps I’ve rushed my rehab to get to those two occasions [The ANNIKA and the CME Tour Group Championship] as they had been vital to me.

“It looks like I’ve lived 9 lives [since winning the LPGA Drive On Championship in January].

“You’re put slightly bit extra beneath a microscope as an athlete when you’ve gotten dangerous days, particularly when you find yourself a top-ranked participant.

“So [it’s about] knowing it’s okay to have bad days and not really look at all the criticism, to believe in your talents and hard work. Not being afraid to make mistakes. I’m human.

“[I’ve also learnt] to take pleasure in life slightly bit extra. It goes in a blur.

“My job is the love of my life – I really like golf a lot, love being out right here and provoking the following technology.

“But after all that has gone on this year it is good to take a step away sometimes, take a bit more time for yourself and disconnect.”

Korda’s wealthy sporting heritage sparks {golfing} beginnings

Korda’s sporting prowess shouldn’t come as too nice a shock when contemplating her lineage.

Her father, Petr Korda, was a former tennis participant from the Czech Republic, who received the Australian Open in 1998, suffered a quarter-final exit to a sure Tim Henman at Wimbledon that very same yr and was runner-up on the French Open in 1992.

Her mom, Regina Rajchrtova, additionally a Czech tennis professional, reached a world-ranking career-high of 26 in 1991 however retired two years later on the age of 24 with the beginning of their eldest daughter Jessica in Florida, who paved the trail for Nelly into the world of golf.

Jessica, older by 5 years, turned skilled in 2010, with Nelly following swimsuit in 2016. The pair grew to become the primary sisters to be partnered collectively on the Solheim Cup in 2019, going the week undefeated and successful the 2 foursomes matches for which they particularly teamed up.

However regardless of the sisters’ greatest efforts, the USA would lose the Solheim Cup to Europe that yr, and once more in 2021 as, this time, the siblings would lose their solely match when paired collectively.

The Kordas’ youthful brother, 24-year-old Sebastian, has, in the meantime, turned his hand to tennis. A Junior Boys champion on the 2018 Australian Open, the present world No 23 had his greatest Grand Slam run as a professional when reaching the quarter-finals in Melbourne final yr.

What has prompted Korda’s outstanding run in 2024?

Korda claimed her first win on tour on the Taiwan Championship in 2018, whereas 2021 was actually her breakout season as she secured 4 LPGA titles, together with a primary main success on the Girls’s PGA Championship.

That victory, by three strokes over Lizette Salas on the Atlanta Athletic Membership in Georgia, catapulted Korda to world No 1 for the primary time and, simply two months later, she received gold on the Tokyo Olympic Video games.

Her progress was hampered, nevertheless, by the revelation of a blood clot in her arm in March 2022 that might see her miss out on that yr’s Chevron Championship, whereas persistent again issues additionally restricted Korda’s success on tour to only one victory in over two years previous to her sudden win streak to kick-start 2024.

However her latest run is much from a fluke. Following the primary of her victories on the LPGA Drive On Championship, when squeezing over the road in a play-off with Lydia Ko after bogeying her closing two holes, Korda opted to take the following seven weeks off to dedicate herself to a brand new health regime.

“That was an aspect that I really wanted to work on and it’s been paying off quite well,” Korda stated on the time of her self-imposed break. “I don’t want to train like a golfer, I want to train like an athlete. Thankfully my team and I, we all have the same outlook on it.”

Comparisons to Scheffler and an icon to match Tiger?

Korda will not be the one American world No 1 dominating {the golfing} panorama in the mean time, with Scottie Scheffler having fun with eerily related success within the males’s enviornment to begin 2024.

Scheffler, simply two years Korda’s senior at 28, additionally bagged the primary main championship of the yr, and second of his profession, at The Masters, following that up with one other dominant victory on the RBC Heritage – his fourth PGA Tour win in 5 begins, on his strategy to seven for the season to match Korda’s haul.

After that RBC Heritage triumph in April, Scheffler stated: “One of the people here asked me, is this turning into a competition between you and Nelly… I don’t know, I think if it’s a competition she’s got me pretty beat right now.”

It’s laborious to argue with Scheffler’s sentiment, even when stated barely with tongue in cheek, as he’s little doubt all too conscious of the magic contact he at present possesses round a golf course.

Requested if Scheffler may find yourself replicating 15-time main winner Tiger Woods’ spell of dominance, Butch Harmon advised Sky Sports activities: “He’s got to do it for 19 more years [to match Woods], but right now who says he can’t?”

And it isn’t simply Scheffler who’s drawing comparisons to Tiger.

Such was the convenience with which Korda cruised to the third of her seven victories for the season on the Ford Championship, after a final-round 65, her swing coach Jamie Mulligan was prompted to proclaim: “That is what it regarded like when he [Tiger] received.

“It looked like he played better than everyone else. She might have the best motion in the game… she’s an athlete making a hard game look easy.”

However is Korda’s dominance good for the ladies’s sport? “I’d love to see her dominate golf,” eight-time Solheim Cup participant Trish Johnson stated. “And the rationale I wish to see that’s as a result of I believe that elevates everyone else.

“When you get that dominant player, like Tiger, everybody else looks at it and thinks, ‘I’ve got to up my game, otherwise she’s just going to win everything’.”

Tiger, little doubt, took golf to new ranges within the early 2000s… may Korda probably do the identical for the ladies’s sport? With each win, increasingly are taking notice.

Watch Nelly Korda in LPGA Tour on the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, which begins on Thursday, stay on Sky Sports activities Golf from 8pm. Stream the LPGA Tour, PGA Tour, DP World Tour, majors and extra with NOW.