ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Because the No. 1 participant on this planet, Nelly Korda has grow to be used to carrying a goal on her again. Heavy expectation necessitates a sudden fall and, so, when she adopted a run of six wins in seven tournaments with three successive missed cuts, gravity launched itself with out a handshake.
Since that streak — which included victory on the Chevron Championship, her first main since 2021 — led to Could, criticism that Korda is a “dome golfer,” a participant who appears in perfect circumstances however struggles within the extra arduous exams, has returned in some quarters.
St Andrews, with its sidewards rain and howling gales, seemed like a course designed to bolster that assertion.
After these first two days on the Outdated Course, Korda has positioned that characterization on discover, posting successive 4-under rounds to start out this Girls’s Open and provides herself a three-shot cushion on her nearest rivals, Lilia Vu and Charley Hull.
The 26-year-old Korda was totally flawless on Friday. To shoot a bogey-free, 4-under 68 with with out even the slightest trace of hassle isn’t any imply feat amid the weather. To take action whereas feeling mildly annoyed that one other 5 gettable birdies weren’t transformed is a special degree of consolation than anybody within the subject has been capable of finding thus far.
She had beauty at birdie from inside 20 ft on Nos. 4, 7, 10, 12, 14 and 16 however missed by a cup or lipped out every time. It seemed like her placing might maintain her scoring again however she rolled in a 20-foot birdie on the infamously tough Highway Gap on 17 and sunk one other testing putt on 18.
Turning it on 🔥
A protracted birdie putt for @NellyKorda on the powerful seventeenth Highway gap and she or he follows it up with a birdie on 18.
She leads the AIG Girls’s Open as she begins her second 9.
Comply with her progress dwell on AIG Girls’s Open Radio https://t.co/4PKMDcUsD1 pic.twitter.com/duuyLj5yJI
— AIG Girls’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) August 23, 2024
Korda’s finishes on the Girls’s Open have been respectable inserting T9, T14, T13, T41 and T11 since 2019 however hyperlinks golf was not presupposed to be a mode of golf that she may conquer with the decrease ball flight, right-to-left motion off the tee and artistic chip photographs required all exterior of her supposed consolation zone.
Golf will not be the one sport that searches for the fabled all-rounder. The tennis world of her brother Sebastian Korda, ranked quantity 16, additionally does it.
Finishing the grand slam set is seen as the top as a result of it shows {that a} competitor is not only formidable on a sure floor or occasion, they’re the last word as a result of their sport can reply any problem thrown at them.
“This 12 months I’ve gained on simply so many various kinds of grasses in various kinds of circumstances that you simply simply type of at all times must adapt,” Korda stated.
“That’s the identical factor in tennis, identical factor in life. You’re at all times adapting to your conditions at hand, and I feel that’s what’s so enjoyable about hyperlinks golf is you’re actually beginning it 30 yards left of your goal. I’m not a fade participant however I’m hitting huge fades.
“I feel it’s enjoyable hitting these little low drivers, too. I’m having enjoyable, and I take pleasure in hyperlinks golf so much. You will have a whole lot of 30-footers that really feel like 50-footers out right here since you’re hitting it into the wind.
“Then additionally the one which I had on 8, which was like a 20-footer and I hit nearly like a 40-footer. It’s all about distance management out right here and type of getting it inside a sure vary so you’ve gotten a straightforward two-putt.
GO DEEPER
‘Simply do the perfect you’ll be able to’: Exhaustion is a part of it for the Girls’s Open subject
“I feel I’m extra tailored to the mindset of actually simply taking it a shot at a time, not considering forward of myself and trusting my traces so much. You’re actually hitting slingers in. I imply, I hit a hybrid 150 yards at the moment on 2 and that’s my 200 (yards) membership. It’s all about simply trusting the method and trusting what you’ve gotten in your hand.”
From tee to inexperienced, there was little to separate Korda and her enjoying companions, Vu and Hull. However her total spherical contained not one miscontrol shot.
Vu needed to escape a bunker on 10 and Hull discovered herself extensive on a few awkward mounds however the divergence that led to a five-shot swing between Korda and in a single day chief Hull was all right down to the putter.
Korda has not been afraid of a putter change however she combined issues up earlier than this match, transferring to a TaylorMade Spider for the primary time. She stated she had beforehand been utilizing a square-back mallet however felt like she wanted one thing new to have a look at and is having fun with the roll she is getting from it.
In distinction, Hull three-putted on 2, 10 and 14. Even when Hull received her first birdie of the day on 5 (after smoking her second cigarette of the day), Korda responded instantly by sinking a 12-footer of her personal, which felt like a reinstatement of her dominance.
“I left a whole lot of putts on the market,” stated Hull.
“Nelly had 30 putts and I had 36 putts. In order that’s six photographs that I’ve misplaced to her on the greens.
“Am I three photographs behind Nelly? That’s nothing going into the weekend, particularly on this golf course. I really feel like I’m hitting it equally nearly as good, she simply holed a couple of extra putts than me at the moment.
“Lilia is the one to look at, as nicely, as a result of when it will get windy she type of simply sticks in there. She’s scrambler.”
Hull, left, and Korda had been two-thirds of an excellent group on the Girls’s Open. (Andy Buchanan / AFP through Getty Photos)
If the R&A had been hoping to extend the profile of ladies’s golf this week then their creation of a super-group comprised of world primary Korda, high Brit Hull and the defending champion Vu — aiming to grow to be the primary participant to retain the trophy since Yani Tseng in 2011 — was a wise method of going about it.
By the point the trio had made it to the fifth gap — the 14th of their spherical — the group following them was round 400 robust with traces three and 4 individuals deep.
This was the elite of ladies’s golf all collectively enjoying on the house of golf however its publicity was restricted provided that Sky Sports activities’ protection of the occasion solely begins at midday this week. Having teed off at 7:55am, just below 12 hours since that they had completed a six-hour-plus spherical Thursday, they solely had three holes remaining.
There may be the weird reprieve that the identical trio are one, two and three on the leaderboard so will compete at shut quarters once more but it surely does little to assist the absence of a celebrity in girls’s golf.
Korda appears reluctant to step into the silhouette herself however two extra machine-like rounds at St Andrews and she or he might must put on the swimsuit.
(High photograph: Andy Buchanan / AFP through Getty Photos)