Nelly Korda’s 2026 season has been an emphatic response to her winless 2025 marketing campaign. She’s relied on a brand new mindset and an on-course freedom that she has related to her off-course happiness, maturity and a aggressive drive that obtained limitless gasoline after 2025. It’s been efficient.
Korda opened her season with a win. Then she gained the primary main of the 12 months in emphatic vogue and adopted that up by reaching a lifelong dream, successful the U.S. Girls’s Open at Riviera. On the heels of that blistering begin, the LPGA created a “scrappy” advertising and marketing plan to introduce Korda to a bigger sports activities viewers and usher in new eyeballs to the game as she readied for the 12 months’s remaining three majors and an opportunity to punch her ticket to the LPGA Corridor of Fame. Korda’s season leveled off after that. Her putter went chilly on the KPMG Girls’s PGA, she missed the lower on the Evian and was one in every of many gamers to let a golden alternative slip by means of her fingers on the AIG Girls’s Open.
Korda took just a few weeks off after the main season concluded, however very like fellow World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Nelly Korda’s aggressive hearth is all the time raging. Whereas the main season is over, Nelly Korda nonetheless has at the very least yet one more huge field to examine off this season: win the Solheim Cup on European soil.
“Now it’s actual,” Korda stated on Wednesday on the FM Championship about waiting for the Solheim Cup in two weeks. “Now it’s time to prepare after this week for the Netherlands and to signify our nation. There isn’t a larger feeling, particularly stepping onto that first tee field.”
On Monday, USA captain Angela Stanford announced that Rose Zhang, Lindy Duncan and Megan Khang can be the ultimate three gamers to fill out the American roster. These three will be a part of Korda, Angel Yin, Jennifer Kupcho, Yealimi Noh, Auston Kim, Lauren Coughlin, Allisen Corpuz, Andrea Lee and Alison Lee on the crew that can head to the Netherlands in two weeks.
Korda and Khang have essentially the most appearances on the crew. However as a four-time main champion and World No. 1, Korda, who’s 10-5-1 in 4 profession Solheim Cups, is Workforce USA’s chief. However that’s a job she’ll strategy in another way than you may assume.
“I’m getting previous,” Korda stated, laughing, on Wednesday at TPC Boston when requested about being the crew’s chief.
“I positively take pleasure in it. I imply, I really feel like we solely have two rookies on Tour. Now we have Lindy, however she’s a vet on Tour. She’s gone by means of a lot. I believe already that week we have now plenty of expertise. Every thing, in terms of the Solheim Cup, is about expertise. I really feel like being over the pond and never having the fan base that, let’s say, we had once we performed over right here, we have now to lean on one another a bit of bit extra. That’s sort of what I realized by means of enjoying in Solheim Cups.
“However I really feel like everybody on that crew could be very vocal and comfy with one another, so we are able to all lean on one another and sort of all really feel like leaders. I really feel prefer it’s higher when it’s all equal, so nobody appears like the massive canine in a way, and we’re all simply there to have enjoyable and play for our nation.”
Nevertheless, Korda’s finest asset as Workforce USA’s chief is perhaps her newfound mentality, a deal with the optimistic that allowed her to run rampant over the game for the primary a number of months. On the Chevron Championship in April, Korda and her longtime caddie Jason McDede harped on the significance of letting issues “roll off her again” and permitting her to “play Nelly Korda golf” for 72 holes. Unhealthy pictures will occur, however you must settle for them and flush them.
On Wednesday at TPC Boston, Korda was requested by a younger fan what recommendation she’d give to younger women simply beginning out in golf. As is usually the case, the best questions give one of the best perception, even into areas they weren’t meant to probe.
“That’s it’s truly not simple,” Korda joked with a smile. “By no means get discouraged as a result of everybody has unhealthy days. All of us hit unhealthy pictures. I chunked a shot on 17. I hit unhealthy pictures, too. So regardless of how good you’re feeling that you’re, such as you’re nonetheless going to hit unhealthy pictures. You’re nonetheless going to have unhealthy days. However by no means get discouraged, and when you’ve got the love for it, simply preserve going.”
Enjoying on overseas soil towards a European crew led by Charley Hull, Lottie Woad and Esther Henseleit, the People will want Korda to guide along with her play and her angle in the event that they plan to depart Bernardus Golf with the Solheim Cup. There will probably be moments when the momentum shifts and the Europeans are using a wave of momentum that threatens to scrub the People away. It is going to be on Korda to function a stabilizing drive whom everybody can comply with because the People attempt to win their first Solheim Cup on European soil since 2015.
In a 12 months that has seen Nelly Korda already obtain her best dream, don’t assume that isn’t additionally on her radar. There’s no coast in Nelly Korda. She’s all the time searching one thing.
“[I] don’t actually have an excessive amount of day without work after this,” Korda stated of her schedule post-majors. “We head to the Netherlands. That’s additionally gasoline in itself.”