‘Strength in letting go:’ Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship by beating herself

HOUSTON – Nelly Korda was a mess inside. He had been there all day. As he calmly raced through the final tournament of a remarkable week that culminated in his third major title, the best player in the world raised his arms and could float in the Houston sky.

The weight had been lifted.

But Nelly Korda redeemed herself and won the Chevron Championship long before she dismantled Memorial Park this week.

Last year was difficult for Korda and his team, since caddy Jason McDede went down. Korda played well, and the stats show he wasn’t far off a seven-win season in 2024. But the trophies did not come. Only other questions from rooms full of journalists wondering when Nelly Korda will be Nelly Korda again – not in terms of statistics but in one important statistic: winning.

“Everybody’s going to 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, yeah,” Korda said on Sunday of the 2025 season, wearing a celebratory Chevron jersey. “It hurts you because that’s what you’re working for. … Sometimes you see numbers that are better than last year [2024] and he’s like, I don’t have lips under my name.”

Then came the US Women’s Open at Erin Hills. Korda played her best golf of the season, but some missed putts and a poor shot on the 18th green saw her fall short of Maja Stark. Korda left Wisconsin heartbroken. That loss overshadowed the upcoming season, where Nelly Korda played good golf but wasn’t consistent enough to win. But it also led to Nelly Korda and her team on Sunday.

The bids for the third major championship went back to Erin Hills.

“Last year, the US Open hurt,” McDede told GOLF on the 18th green at Memorial Park on Sunday. “But everything happens for a reason, right? If that didn’t happen, we probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

That day in Wisconsin was the cause of the frustration that filled the golf course during the summer and fall, and the place that led to Korda. His mind was racing and negativity filled his thoughts on the golf course. When the season finally ended, Nelly Korda knew something had to change – herself.

“He’s like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I don’t want to do anything crazy. But I want to get better. So what am I going to do better?’ Korda said. “The first time I got frustrated last time I was on the golf course, I started analyzing everything, I started overthinking, and it paralyzed me, I told myself that I don’t want to feel like that on the golf course.”

Korda and McDede sat down to discuss the new approach, focused on trust and belief in the world-class golf that Korda has been blessed with. Play smart, don’t take too many risks, take your chances, and, most importantly, minimize the bad breaks the golf course will give you. Grow up and be Nelly Korda. Stop overthinking and just do. Relax.

“I think he lets things go easy in his golf game,” McDede told GOLF. “Sometimes, before we try to do our best. When you’re a good player, you want to be perfect in every shot. Sometimes, that can be a double-edged sword. I think we accept mistakes a little better. That’s not the last hole of the day or the tournament. It’s just trying to take it one shot at a time and play 72 and see what happens.”

“Sometimes, there’s just power in letting go,” Korda said.

There were times this week when Nelly Korda needed to be reminded of that.

He entered the weekend with a record six shots and had to walk the line between being aggressive and defensive.

“That’s not Nelly’s golf,” Korda said Sunday.

He missed two short putts on Saturday, and McDede had seen him start to get back to the old Nelly Korda. “That’s human nature,” he said. Korda admits that, although his lead never dropped below four, it felt small in his mind at times. That’s when he had to “go back to the bubble.”

Because this weekend at Memorial Park, Nelly Korda’s biggest obstacle was beating herself.

“Maybe he’s coming from me,” Korda said when asked who his biggest rival is this weekend. “That’s when I just missed a short putt, and I started doubting … I want to go out and play golf. Whatever happens, if I jump in that pool, if I have the trophy in my hands at the end of the day, it’s great. I gave it 100%. If I don’t, I’ll have next week.”

Going into the final round with a five-goal lead, Korda knew he had to play hard and make the chasers try to catch him. If he played smart golf, they would have to do something special to track him down. That was easier said than done for an aggressive player who likes to bust pins and get into trouble. But with McDede’s helpful guide, Nelly Korda stuck to her game plan. He let go of Nelly’s golf shot when he stuck a 50-degree wedge to within inches of a birdie putt at 13, then had to back off and play it safe with a layup on the par-5 16th that had trouble hiding.

In the past, it would have been difficult for Nelly Korda to hold back. But the maturity that Nelly Korda went through as a player and as a person allowed her to humble her mind and stick to this plan.

“If the truth is told, if it has taught me anything, it is to focus only on myself, not to listen to outside noise,” said Korda after his win. “I would say it was a big part of why I’m sitting next to the trophy.”

Nelly Korda’s worst drive of the day came on her final hole. With a lead of five, Korda lost his ball in the rough to the left, and it landed on the patch of grass where the television tripod had just stood. “Right, that’s where my worst drive of the day came,” Korda told McDede. He measured it and sent it to a thick neck near the bunker. He jumped up and hit a six-foot putt to complete his climb back.

Meanwhile, Nelly Korda, who had been in knots all day because of the intense anxiety of the tournament, had done the hard work.

All that was left was to be released.