Nelly Korda regrets 1 shot in 2025 without a win

NAPLES, Fla. — Nelly Korda had a simple one explanation for her 2025 winless season when the LPGA year ended Sunday in Naples.

“It was a grind,” Korda said of the campaign following her seven wins in 2024. “Success is never linear.”

While that’s true, every decision and every move Korda made in 2025 played a role in the final outcome, sending ripples through a disappointing season for the LPGA’s biggest star. One shot in particular still sticks in Korda’s mind. It ended up being the defining photo of her season, just not in the way she hoped.

“Exactly No. 18 at the US Open,” Korda said Sunday of her final full swing at Erin Hills. “I actually hit it so well. I probably hit it my best all year, and just because of the adrenaline I hit it maybe, I don’t know, 10 yards too long and a little bit to the left; it was where at the beginning of the week on Monday I was like, I can’t be here and I was there. So if I could make a shot.”

Korda entered the week at Erin Hills preaching patience. The US Women’s Open is the tournament she covets the most. It is also the one that has given her the most trouble throughout her career. Korda finished the final round of the 2023 US Women’s Open at Pebble Beach with an 80. She posted the same score during the opening round of the 2024 edition at Lancaster Country Club. The main event in women’s golf has tortured her, but she showed up in Wisconsin with a plan to enter contention and change the narrative.

“If you’re going to feel it, you’re going to feel it,” Korda said of the expected pressure to fight and win. “But I think what’s really important is to stick to the game plan and really focus on what you’re doing in the moment, and that’s really helped me.”

Korda stuck to her patient approach at Erin Hills and it paid off as she led the tournament in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green for the week. But when she reached the par-5 18th hole on Sunday, she had no time for patience. Still trailing Maja Stark by three, Korda needed to do something to increase the pressure on Stark as she descended. She split the fairway with her putt and then hit her second to the flag. The shot landed high, but bounded over the green and into a gully. She ended up making bogey and finishing in a tie for second.

“When you get that close and you feel the adrenaline going down on 18, all you want to do is hold the trophy at the end of the day,” Korda said that day in Wisconsin. “And I’m not.

“Just an absolute heartbreaker,” Korda said. “But that’s golf.”

Korda’s 2025 reflected her four days at Erin Hills. She was statistically very, very good. She was better in club and putt in 2025 than during her historic 2024 season. Her approach numbers are the same, and only her game around the green was worse.

And yet, all of that would be moot if Korda’s final full swing at Erin Hills landed safely on the putting surface and gave her a glimpse of an eagle. She would still need to make the putt — she was ranked 52nd in the shot put that week — and she needed Stark to stumble coming home to have a chance. Crazier things have happened in golf than someone blowing what would have been a one- or two-shot lead when trying to close out their first major.

A successful comeback attempt at the US Women’s Open would have been the defining moment of Korda’s career up to this point. A win that would mean more than any trophy she lifted in 2024. The rest of 2025 would have been house money.

But Korda’s adrenaline-fueled approach doomed any hopes she had, and she left Wisconsin still in search of the big championship trophy she craves most.

The rest of her season was a combination of good golf and mediocre results. Korda was not a factor in any of the other majors and she finished the season tied for third in the Tour Championship, six strokes behind Jeeno Thitikul, who overtook Korda as world number 1 in August.

It was a year that was difficult to explain for Nelly Korda. She mostly figured it out by being on the wrong side of golf’s “fine line.” The big picture of a winless season left Korda with a sense of pride in how she stayed healthy and worked to improve her game. That it all came down to zero trophies being added to Korda’s case is nothing more than the reality of life in an individual sport.

“The spikes are probably like looking at the bright flashes in my game where I’m really excited about the work I’ve done,” Korda said. “Then some of the low points are like every girl here can say, every pro can say this, you put so much time and effort into your craft and you just don’t play well. You just do it over and over again. Sometimes, you just go a little crazy.”

Korda went winless in 2023 and responded with a seven-game winning streak in 2024 that included five in a row. The 2025 season may have been draining for Korda, but it served as a reminder to lean on those around her to gain a different perspective and focus on what she can control.

“I would just say expectations, listening to outside noises, really just sticking to what I know best, and that’s to keep it simple,” Korda said.

In the end, 2025 brought questions and a regret for Nelly Korda. He could have helped change everything.

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