The fall of Nelly Kordi from no. 1 does not mean what you think does

The 17-month direction of Nelly Korda as the world no. Her sixth at the top of the Rolex ranking-ended Monday when Jeeno Thiticul of Thailand officially eclipsed the American.

Fall of cords from no. 1 comes the day after It finished T36 in AIG Women’s Open At Royal Porthcawl, capturing a big championship season in which she failed to be a weekend factor in four out of five shifts. After winning seven times during a vague 2024 campaign, Korda has not yet won this season. The LPGA has had 21 different winners in 20 events, but Korda has not yet set up a trophy.

The fall of Korda at No.2 will of course lead to great questions and thoughts about her season and what she says about the situation of women’s golf and her place at the top of the sport. In a society prone to hyperbole, it would be easy to pretend that the season without the winner of Korda (so far) and fall from world no. 1 is an indictment of her talent or ability to be wind in women’s golf sails.

But if you zoom in and get available to the past two seasons of Korda and the nature of the golf, the answer is much simpler.

NELLY KORDA

The first thing to note is that statistically, Nelly Korda is not playing a worse golf than it a season ago. The numbers may cheat, but last year, when she won seven times, Korda’s statistics were as follows:

Acquired Shocks: Total (Grade LPGA): 2.84 (1)
Bounds obtained: Tee to Green: 1.88 (3)
Bounds obtained: Out of Tee: 0.87 (2)
Bounds obtained: Access: 0.59 (22)
Bounds obtained: About Green: 0.42 (4)
Bounds obtained: Setting: 0.41 (34)
Percent of birds: 24.37 (2)
Birdie or better percentage: 25.12 (2)
Avoiding Bogey: 13.06 % (5)

Those numbers so far this season? They are not far away, and, for the KPMG performance mirrors, Korda actually has the best strokes earned total and obtained strokes by setting average than it at this point last season. Here are the numbers in general this season up to this point:

Bounds obtained: Total: 2.43 (3)
Bounds obtained: Tee to Green: 1.67 (4)
Bounds obtained: Out of Tee: 1.04 (1)
Bounds obtained: Access: 0.65 (16)
Bounds obtained: About Green: -0.02 (81)
Bounds obtained: Setting: 0.80 (17)
Someone Perccentage: 25.41 (1)
Birdie or better percentage: 25.77 (1)
Avoiding Bogey: 14.89 percent (23)

So what do we do a season that looks statistically similar, but there are seven fewer wins and has seen Corda fall into world no. 2? First of all, it is difficult to win in Golf. You need a lot of things to go your way, some of which are out of control.

At the first tournament of the season, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Korda went to a charge Sunday she saw her nine birds while shooting a seven-nine 65 years old as she tried to shoot a Lim. That would be enough to win a lot of tours, but Kim scored three birds in her last four holes to hold Nelly and win from two.

Sometimes you just beat.

The same can be said for US Woman ofpur, USA, Where Korda was the best player to green in Erin Hills, but was ruined by a cold putter that lost 0.42 strokes during the week. Cord directed the field that week to hit by Tee (1.82) and caught a shot at the shooting of Afrim (1.18), but could not overcome the winner Maja Stark on Sunday, when her paw went cold. cordage heart attack in Erin Hills It was extremely similar to the loss of Rory Mcilroy in 2023 US Open, where he could get nothing to drop Sunday and a bad pace was the change in a one -blow to Wynham Clark.

The flipse of this currency is that since T2 of Cord in Erin Hills, it has only one Top-10 conclusion, which was a fifth place in the ISPS Handa Scottish Open. She completed T19 at the KPMG women’s PGA Championship in PGA Frisco, recorded a T43 in Evian, and a T36 this week last at Royal PartthCawl. Add to the T14 to Chevron, where Cord brought himself out of the quarrel with an open round 77, and this is four of the five diplomas in which the 27-year-old was not a factor on the weekend.

Last year, Korda won Chevron and finished T2 at AIG Women’s Open, where a brutal behind the nine condemned her chances. While she lost her cutting in the PGA women of women of US women and KPMG women’s PGA, Korda had only four other tournaments throughout the season, where she ended up outside 10 cannons. It has ended up the top 10 eight times this season in 13 Starters.

“It’s been a very interesting year for me,” Korda said in Erin Hills. “Definitely have been a little good and a little bad. A kind of mix in the type of event I have played.

“Golf golf,” she told PGA Frisco in front of the KPMG women’s PGA championship. “Yeardo year is just as different. Last year, coming to this event, I had five wins. I think Hannah Green also had many wins under its belt, too, entering this event. Just just golf. You just have to ride in waves, and competition is getting better and better every year.”

Cord placed a high bar for herself last season. Profit seven times is one farthest. Her game this season, while still statistically good, has been under that bar and even a note under what should be expected from it on an annual basis. If she goes without a victory this season, that would also be a farthest.

What to do the season of the cord

My colleague James Colgan had an excellent attraction on our confidential round chartRemembering what Augusta’s national leader Fred Ridley said when asked about Caitlin Clark’s influence on women’s basketball and why the same thing was not happening to women’s golf as Corda was winning five shifts.

“We hope that more people come together like (Clark), and of course we hope that people come together with Golf,” Ridley said, who then continued to Riffa for national women’s amateur Augusta before returning to his Clark point. “But I just think it’s a kind of unicorn, indeed, we need more unicorn in this regard.”

Ridley’s comments were not particularly well received as Korda was burned every course she went. But his question was that, whether Korda or not, the women’s golf needs a transformative star to raise it to the next level. She needs a superstar to pull the eyes of the eye.

Maybe the cord can still be the case. Maybe she is just a star, but not the “unicorn” the game needs. Despite a decline in 2025 and a decrease in no. 2 will not give a judgment on that question. It is nothing more than the voice and the flow of golf. We’ve seen it countlessly from the previous players before. In 2017, Rory Mcilroy, who had won seven times in two years, went without victory and fell to 11th in the world. After the season, the Northern Ireland star said he played through an annoying rib issue, but he still ended T7 in Masters and T4 in Open, so his game was good enough to compete. Likewise, between November 2019 and May 2021, Mcilroy went 25 events without a victory while falling ninth in the world. He soon rose back to world no. 1 and has won 11 times all over the world since 2022. Each small diphur promoted Mcilroy’s game in bigger Heights as he worked to become a “fuller player”. The results followed.

There is every reason to believe the same thing will be true for cords. Whether or not that paint flows in the most appearance, women’s golf is trying to color it remains to be seen.