Nelly Korda: World No 1 targets extra main success after historic LPGA Tour successful streak | Golf Information

Nelly Korda is the dominant pressure in ladies’s golf proper now, however is a run of six LPGA Tour wins in seven begins simply the beginning of her ascent to sporting superstardom?

The 25-year-old tied Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) for probably the most consecutive LPGA Tour wins with victory at The Chevron Championship final month, having already received the LPGA Drive On Championship, Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, Ford Championship and T-Cellular Match Play this season.

Korda’s successful streak was briefly halted with a tied-seventh end on the Cognizant Founders Cup, though she bounced again to assert a one-shot victory on the Mizuho Americas Open and register a 14th LPGA Tour title.

The world No 1 would be the pre-tournament favorite as soon as once more when she headlines the US Ladies’s Open, dwell from Thursday on Sky Sports activities Golf, the place Korda is chasing back-to-back main victories and the chance to proceed a successful run nearly unparalleled in skilled sport.

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 start 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 go well with in 2016. The pair turned 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. Jessica was pregnant and so missed out as Europe as soon as extra retained the trophy final yr.

The Kordas’ youthful brother, 22-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 26 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 Ladies’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, nonetheless, 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 current 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 remaining two holes, Korda opted to take the subsequent 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 has mentioned 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.”

Korda attributes her record-setting kind to having her “team” round her, with coach Jamie Mulligan and caddie Jason McDede providing their assist, with the cautious schedule planning additionally key to keep away from burnout from LPGA Tour motion.

“The only week that I haven’t had someone out was during Cognizant, and I just didn’t really hit it that well that week,” Korda mentioned forward of the US Ladies’s Open.

“So making sure that my team is taking time for me as well and coming out and making sure that we’re all dedicated to each other has kind of really been the thing that has changed this year, because every event that I’ve been to and I’ve played in, I’ve had a coach there.”

Comparisons to Scheffler and an icon to match Tiger?

Korda is just not 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 start out 2024.

Scheffler, simply two years Korda’s senior at 27, 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.

“One of the people here asked me, is this turning into a competition between you and Nelly,” Scheffler informed reporters after clinching his weather-delayed win on the RBC Heritage. “I don’t know, I think if it’s a competition she’s got me pretty beat right now.”

It’s onerous to argue with Scheffler’s sentiment, even when mentioned barely with tongue in cheek, as he’s little question all too conscious of the magic contact he at the moment possesses across the golf course.

Given the divide within the males’s sport proper now with the arrival of LIV Golf the final two years, Scheffler is just not repeatedly and repeatedly being examined by the very best of his friends, whereas the identical actually can’t be mentioned of Korda – albeit defending champion, and world No 2, Lilia Vu was lacking from The Chevron Championship discipline having pulled out simply previous to her tee time with a again damage.

Korda’s streak has additionally spanned totally different codecs, with the fourth of her wins on the T-Cellular Match Play in Las Vegas involving a mid-tournament change from stroke play to match play. No trouble, as she defeated Angel Yin 3&2, Na Rin An 4&3 and Leona Maguire 4&3 by way of the knockout phases to carry the title.

That’s to take nothing away from Scheffler’s outstanding run of his personal. “It’s pretty impressive everything he’s done this year,” Butch Harmon informed Sky Sports activities following his second triumph at Augusta Nationwide.

Requested if Scheffler may find yourself replicating Tiger Woods’ spell of dominance, Harmon added: “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 at which Korda cruised to the third of her five-straight victories on the Ford Championship, after a final-round 65, her swing coach Jamie Mulligan was prompted to proclaim: “That’s what it looked like when he [Tiger] won.

“It appeared like he performed higher than everybody else. She might need the very best movement within the sport… she’s an athlete making a tough sport look straightforward.”

Each Korda and Scheffler have some option to go to match Tiger’s 15 main championship wins, whereas Byron Nelson’s all-time males’s file of 11 PGA Tour victories – set in 1945 – is probably going out of attain.

However would such dominance by one participant be good for the ladies’s sport? “I’d love to see her dominate golf,” eight-time Solheim Cup participant Trish Johnson mentioned. “And the reason I want to see that is because I think that elevates everybody else.

“While you get that dominant participant, like Tiger, all people else appears at it and thinks, ‘I’ve received to up my sport, in any other case she’s simply going to win every thing’.”

Tiger, no doubt, took golf to new levels in the early 2000s… could Korda possibly do the same for the women’s game? With more and more people taking note with every win, she is well on the road to sporting superstardom, it is just a case of whether we can all keep up.

Watch Nelly Korda in LPGA Tour action throughout the 2024 season live on Sky Sports. Stream the LPGA Tour, PGA Tour, DP World Tour, majors and extra with NOW.