HOUSTON — Nelly Korda was a mess inside. She had been all day. When she calmly rolled in the final putt of a dominant week that ended in her third major title, the world’s best player lifted her arms and could’ve floated away into the Houston sky.
A weight had been lifted.
But Nelly Korda freed herself and won the Chevron Championship long before she dismantled Memorial Park this week.
Last year was brutally hard on Korda and her team, from caddie Jason McDede on down. Korda played well, and the stats showed she wasn’t far off from the seven-win season of 2024. But the trophies never came. Only questions from reporters wondering when Nelly Korda would be Nelly Korda again — not statistically, but in the only stat that matters: wins.
“Everyone would be like, you know, your stats are great, better than last year, but you have zero trophies under your name this year. I’m like, I see that, yes,” Korda said Sunday, wearing a celebratory Chevron bathrobe. “It wears on you 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 have zero trophies under my name.”
Then came the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills. Korda played her best golf of the entire season, but some missed putts and a poor shot into the 18th green saw her come up short of Maja Stark. Korda left Wisconsin heartbroken. That loss perfectly encapsulated the season that would unfold, where she played good golf but not consistently enough to win. But it also led her to Sunday.
“Last year, the U.S. Open hurt,” McDede told GOLF.com on Memorial Park’s 18th green Sunday. “But everything happens for a reason, right? If that doesn’t happen, maybe we’re not here right now.”
That final day in Wisconsin was the catalyst for the frustration that bubbled over on the golf course during the summer and fall. Negativity filled her thoughts on the golf course. When 2025 finally concluded, Korda knew something needed to change — herself.
“You’re like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I don’t want to do anything crazy. But I do want to get better. So what am I going to do better?'” Korda said. “The first thing was I was getting frustrated last year on the golf course, and I started overanalyzing everything, and I started overthinking, and then that was paralyzing me. I told myself I don’t ever want to feel like that on a golf course.”
Korda and McDede sat down to discuss a new approach, one focused on positivity and belief in the world-class game she’s been blessed with. Play smart, don’t take on too much risk, capitalize on your opportunities and, most importantly, shrug off the bad breaks. Exhale and be Nelly Korda. Stop thinking so much and just do. Be free.
“I think she’s letting things roll off of her golf game a little easier,” McDede said. “At times, before we tried to be really perfect. When you’re a great player, you want to be perfect on every shot. At times, that can be a double-edged sword. I think we are accepting mistakes a little bit better. That’s not the last hole of the day or the tournament. Just trying to take it shot by shot and play 72 and see what happens.”
“Sometimes, there is just a power in letting go,” Korda said.
There were moments this week where she had to be reminded of that. Korda entered the weekend with a record six-shot lead and had to toe the line between offense and defense.
“That’s not Nelly golf,” she said Sunday night.
She missed two short putts on Saturday, and McDede had seen her start to revert to her old self. “That’s human nature,” he said. Korda admits that, even though her lead never shrank below four, it felt smaller in her mind at times. That’s when she had to “get back in the bubble.”
“Probably from me,” Korda said, when asked who her biggest opponent was this weekend. “It was just when I missed a short putt, and I started doubting myself … I want to go out and play golf. Whatever happens, if I jump into 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.”
Ask McDede, and he’ll tell you that Nelly Korda hasn’t changed much as a player. She’s a little longer, but otherwise she’s the same Nelly on the course. But she is “maturing” as a player and person. As McDede and Team Korda watched Nelly polish off an emphatic major win, they saw a glimpse into their future.
“I think she’s just a happy person,” McDede said. “Her life is coming together. She’s maturing. She’s getting into her late 20s. Her life is starting to have a direct path with who she’s going to marry. We are all the same people. We are all comfortable. We’ve been around each other for so long that we have little lulls and stretches where we didn’t get what we want, we know we can do it together.”
Entering the final round with a five-shot lead, Korda knew that she had to play conservatively and make the chasers try and catch her. If she played smart golf, they’d have to do something special to track her down. That was easier said than done for a typically agressive player who likes to fire at pins and take on trouble. But with McDede helping guide, Korda stuck to her game plan. She unleashed a classic Nelly golf shot — a 50-degree wedge to inches for a tap-in birdie at 13 — and then pulled back and played it safe by laying up on the par-5 16th.
In the past, it would’ve been hard for Korda to rein herself in. But her maturation as a player and a person allowed her to calm her mind and stick to the process.
“Honestly, if it’s taught me anything, it’s to just focus on myself, not listen to the outside noise,” Korda said after her win. “I would say it was a very big part of why I’m sitting next to the trophy.”
Korda’s worst drive of the day came on her final hole. With a five-shot lead, Korda lost her tee ball into the left rough, and it sat down in a gnarly patch of grass where a television tripod had previously stood. “Of course, this is where my worst drive of the day lands,” Korda told McDede. She gauged it out and sent it into the thick collar by the bunker. She chipped up and faced a 10-foot putt to finish her climb back.
She had been in knots all day with major championship anxiety, but at that point, Korda had already done the hard part.
All that was left was to let go.
