HOUSTON – Nelly Korda was a mess inside. She had been there all day. When she calmly rolled in the final goal of a dominant week that ended with her third major title, the world’s best player raised her arms and could have flown into the Houston sky.
A weight had been lifted.
But Nelly Korda was released and won Chevron Championship long before it was dismantled Memorial Park this week.
Last year was brutally difficult for Korda and her team, from caddy Jason McDede on down. Korda played well and the stats showed she wasn’t far off from the seven-win season she had in 2024. But the trophies never came. Just more questions from rooms full of reporters wondering when Nelly Korda would be Nelly Korda again – not statistically, but in the only statistic that matters: wins.
“Everybody would be like, you know, your stats are great, better than last year, but you have zero trophies to your name this year. I’m like, I see that, yeah,” Korda said on Sunday of the 2025 season, wearing a festive Chevron outfit. “It wears you down because that’s what you’re working for. … Sometimes you see the stats are better last year than (2024) and you’re like, well, I’ve got zero trophies to my name.”
Then came the US Women’s Open at Erin Hills. Korda played her best golf of the season, but a couple of missed putts and a poor putt on the 18th hole saw her slip away from Maja Stark. cordage left Wisconsin heartbroken. This loss perfectly summed up the season that was to unfold, where Nelly Korda played good golf, but not enough to win. But this also led Nelly Korda and her team to Sunday.
The tentacles of a third major championship win extend back to Erin Hills.
“Last year, the US Open hurt,” McDede told GOLF on the 18th green at Memorial Park on Sunday. “But everything happens for a reason, right? If it didn’t, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.”
That day in Wisconsin was the catalyst for the frustration that erupted on the golf course over the summer and fall, and where it took Korda. Her mind continued to race and negativity filled her thoughts about the golf course. When the season finally ended, Nelly Korda knew something had to change – herself.
“You say, ‘Okay, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel.’ I don’t want to do anything crazy. But I want to get better. So what am I going to do better?” Korda said. “The first thing was I was frustrated last year on the golf course, and I started overanalyzing everything, and I started overthinking, and then it was paralyzing me. I told myself I never want to feel like that on a golf course.”
Korda and McDede sat down to discuss a new approach, centered on positivity and confidence in the world-class golf Korda has been blessed with. Play smart, don’t take too much risk, take advantage of your opportunities, and most importantly, avoid the bad breaks the golf course will give you. Get out and be Nelly Korda. Stop thinking so much and just do. Be free.
“I think she’s letting things slide a little bit easier on her golf game,” McDede told GOLF. “Sometimes, before we tried to be really perfect. When you’re a great player, you want to be perfect on every shot. Sometimes that can be a double-edged sword. I think we’re accepting mistakes a little better. It’s not the last hole of the day or the tournament. We just try to take it shot by shot and play 72 and see what happens.”
“Sometimes, there’s just a power to let go,” Korda said.
There were moments this week where Nelly Korda had to be reminded of that.
She entered the weekend with a record six-stroke lead and had to toe the line between being aggressive and defensive.
“This is not Nelly golf,” Korda said Sunday.
She missed two short shots on Saturday, and McDede had seen her start to get back to the Nelly Korda of old. “That’s human nature,” he said. Korda admits that, although her lead never dipped below four, she felt smaller in her mind at times. That’s when she had to “get back into the bubble.”
Because this weekend at Memorial Park, Nelly Korda’s biggest obstacle was beating herself.
“Probably me,” Korda said when asked who her biggest opponent was this weekend. “It was when I missed a short putt that I started doubting myself … I want to go out and play golf. Whatever happens, if I jump in that pond, if I have the trophy in my hands at the end of the day, then great. I gave it 100%. If I don’t, then I have next week.”
Entering the final round with a five-shot leadKorda knew he had to play it safe and make his followers try to catch him. If she played smart golf, they would have to do something special to find her. That was easier said than done for the typical aggressive player who likes to shoot the pins and run into trouble. But with McDede’s help, Nelly Korda stuck to her game plan. She unleashed a Nelly golf shot when she stuck a 50-degree wedge into inches for a tap-in birdie at 13, and then had to pull back and play it safe laying on the par-5 16th with trouble in the bogey.
In the past, it would have been difficult for Nelly Korda to restrain herself. But the maturity that Nelly Korda has undergone as a player and as a person allowed her to put her mind at ease and stick to the process.
“Honestly, if it’s taught me anything, it’s to focus only on myself, not to listen to outside noise,” Korda said after her victory. “I would say that was a very big part of why I’m sitting next to the trophy.”
Nelly Korda’s worst drive of the day came on her final hole. With a five-stroke lead, Korda missed her ball in the left fairway, and it landed in a patch of grass where a television tripod had just stood. “Of course, that’s where my worst drive of the day goes down,” Korda told McDede. She measured him and sent him to the thick collar near the bunker. She chipped in and faced a six-foot putt to complete her climb back.
At that moment, Nelly Korda, who had been in knots all day with the great anxiety of the championship, had already done the hard part.
The only thing left was to let go.
