THE WOODLANDS, Texas – When Nelly Korda’s at home in Florida grinding on the range, she sets up a tripod and videos roughly 20 swings per session. Korda estimates she has 6,000 videos on her phone, maybe more, forcing her to constantly upgrade her iCloud storage.
By the time she left for the Chevron Championship in Texas, the World No. 2 was content with the swing she saw on the video playback.
On a rainy Thursday at the Nicklaus Course at The Club at Carlton Woods, Korda birdied all four par 5s in Round 1, pulling within one stroke of leader Peiyun Chien. Back-to-back birdies on her last two holes included a small, controlled 50-degree wedge to 1 foot to close out an opening 4-under 68.
“Overall, I played pretty well,” she said. “It was nice to finish the way I did with just a tap-in birdie, but made a couple mistakes here and there where it was more of the yardage where I was a little too aggressive and I left myself a little short-sided chip, and with the rain that we got during the delay, I wasn’t sure how it was going to react, bump-and-running it or flopping it.
Incredible form
@NellyKorda wraps up the first round at @Chevron_Golf with a close approach shot and a 4-under 68. pic.twitter.com/YfIbFDHm3V
— LPGA (@LPGA) April 21, 2023
“Just made a couple of mistakes there, but that’s a given at a major championship.”
Korda said she’s mostly been working on her swing solo of late, noting that she came back from Singapore struggling with her balance from the jet lag.
The 24-year-old said the constant videoing doesn’t make her a technical player. She’s simply looking to make sure she’s hitting the spots in her swing.
The eight-time LPGA winner and Olympic gold medalist who boasts one of the most enviable swings in the game, said she makes the majority of her mistakes on the backswing.
@nellykorda is one of us
#thechevronchampionship #starsarebrighthere pic.twitter.com/pv12zwrF3C
— The Chevron Championship (@Chevron_Golf) April 21, 2023
“It’s hard, because I grew up in an academy setting where I had a coach behind me, and after every shot he would tell me if my positions were good,” she said.
“But then when you’re by yourself, which a majority of the time when I’m practicing I am, it’s hard to know if one swing was good and one swing was not in my positions, because your feel is different every day. That’s why I over-obsess with videoing. It’s just to check to see if I’m actually hitting the positions I want.”