HOUSTON — Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship on Sunday with a performance worthy of her return to the No. 1 ranking in women’s golf.
Leading by five goals at the start, Korda was as efficient as ever and no one could get closer than four shots all afternoon at Memorial Park. He closed with a 2-under 70 to win by five shots to capture the third major of his career.
The victory was her 17th on the LPGA and 21st in the world, and was enough for the 27-year-old American star to return to the top of the women’s world rankings for the first time since August, taking the top spot from Jeeno Thitikul.
Not only did Korda win wire-to-wire, it was never really a contest. He hit a 5-foot-5 for birdie on his 16th hole of the opening round Thursday to take the lead and never trailed.
As easy as Korda made it look, it felt like a struggle.
“That was a tough weekend,” he said. “Honestly, having that big of a lead, it’s not easy. It was definitely one of the hardest things I had to do mentally. … I’m just glad I did it.”
He celebrated in the best way — a cannon ball in a 4 1/2-foot pool built to the right of the 18th green to keep a tradition at this major that began in 1988 when the winner jumped into Poppie’s Pool in Mission Hills in the California desert.
Korda’s lead was four shots after a three-putt bogey on the 12th. He followed that up by hitting a wedge to 2 feet on the 13th, then 3-wooded just short of the green on the par-5 14th to make the layup for his final birdie.
She joined Juli Inkster (1989) and Amy Alcott (1991), both at Nabisco Dinah Shore, as the only players in the last 50 years to win LPGA majors when they led by multiple shots after each round.
And by the looks of it, Korda might just be off to another great season. He has played in the final round of all five tournaments he has played this year, winning his first of the season and his first major, and finishing second in the other three.
About the only drama in the final hour — all weekend, really — was whether Korda could break Dottie Pepper’s record of 72 goals that had stood since 1999. Korda was playing it safe with a big lead, hitting the green oil and getting used to pars, and another three putt bogey.
He finished at 18-under 270, one short of Pepper’s record at Mission Hills.
Korda made a 25-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole on Friday, and didn’t make another putt more than 10 feet all week. That includes a 4-foot miss that ended up not being a touchdown.
But that was part of Korda’s new vision. Don’t worry about mistakes, you know he can fix them, and he did.
“What I told myself is that I want to lift this trophy because I want to show the kids at home that it’s okay to miss short putts and win the big title,” he said with a laugh. “You’re going to make mistakes. You have to mentally still be in it 100%, and that’s really what I wanted for the show.
“I wanted to show myself and I wanted to show everyone who was looking at me.”
Ruoning Yin (69) and Patty Tavatanakit (70) tied for second. They were the only ones who could even think of getting a chance on Sunday.
Tavatanakit birdied 25 feet on the sixth hole to get four shots back, only to bogey with a wedge on the par-5 eighth. Yin went 56 consecutive holes without a bogey until he made one on the 17th.
Korda won $1.35 million for the victory that put her back as the undisputed leader in women’s golf. He won seven times in 2024, including a record-tying five-in-a-row victory at The Chevron while at Carlton Woods.
It was the first time that the LPGA’s grand opening event was held at Memorial Park, a major golf course that was redesigned for the Houston Open on the PGA Tour.
