Nelly Korda Keeping Her Cool at KPMG Women’s PGA Championship

1. FRISCO, Texas — On a typical day, Nelly Korda shooting even par wouldn’t be much to write home about. But Saturday at the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship wasn’t a normal round of golf for the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 at the year’s third major championship.

It’s hot. It’s hard. It’s windy, all of which have contributed to slower-than-normal rounds, which can take a toll on an athlete’s mentality, even more so in challenging conditions. Korda certainly hasn’t been immune to that this week, but her third-round effort at Fields Ranch East was an impeccable display of the mental tenacity that Korda possesses, an even-par round that felt like a 66 to the two-time major champion.

It’s hot. It’s hard. It’s windy, all of which have contributed to slower-than-normal rounds, which can take a toll on an athlete’s mentality, even more so in challenging conditions. Korda certainly hasn’t been immune to that this week, but her third-round effort at Fields Ranch East was an impeccable display of the mental tenacity that Korda possesses, an even-par round that felt like a 66 to the two-time major champion.

Korda started the day at 2-over, opening day three with two bogeys to immediately drop back to 4-over. The 15-time LPGA Tour winner erased those mistakes with a pair of birdies on the par-3 4th and par-4 5th holes to get back to even par on the day, but she slipped up again with a bogey on six. Korda then closed out her front nine with a birdie on seven and a bogey on nine to turn in 38 at 3-over for the tournament.

The 26-year-old posted three pars before dropping another shot on the par-3 13th hole, now at 4-over total with five holes remaining. But Korda dug deep, landing a punch with a birdie on the drivable, par-4 15th hole to move back to 3-over and then making one last birdie on the par-3 17th hole to ultimately finish in the same position in which she began the third round, at 2-over for the championship.

“It’s so brutal out here. The greens are so firm. It’s blowing 30 to 35 miles an hour. It’s messing with your putts. You’re just happy to get 18 under your belt on a day like this,” Korda said with a laugh to NBC’s Cara Banks. “It’s brutal. You’re exhausted after these days because it’s such a premium to hit the fairways, but you’re starting it so far right. It’s almost like you’re playing a British, but you can’t run it up to these greens because if you hit it short of some of these greens, it sucks it straight back. It’s very interesting to play in these conditions the past couple of days.”

Last year’s AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews comes to mind when thinking about the windiest conditions many of the LPGA Tour’s best have seen in recent seasons. Korda can understand that point but would argue that this week at Fields Ranch East is much more grueling because of the fluffy Bermudagrass that wreaks havoc on a player’s ability to spin the ball coming out of the rough. There are also very few areas where you can hit the ball and run it up to the greens.

So, with all of those factors mitigating a player’s ability to go low at this venue, 72s are incredibly respectable scores, and no one was going to catch Korda complaining about the one she fired on Saturday in Frisco, Texas.

“I’m happy with even par,” said Korda. “There are some gettable holes. There is seven which is reachable, has been reachable every day. Then they moved up 15. So there are some gettable holes. Overall, you can never just take a breather out there. It’s like everything is super demanding, especially with this wind. I thought it was windy yesterday, and then we played today, and it was even windier.”

Korda is currently eight strokes behind 54-hole leader Minjee Lee and will need a couple of things to happen if she wants a shot at her third career major victory. First, Lee would need to come back to the field a bit, which might be unlikely considering how comfortable the Aussie looked as she tackled the challenge that Fields Ranch East presented in the third round. Korda would also need to card a final score of par or better, something that the world No. 1 is more than capable of doing, having proved that fact several times in the past when things were just as arduous.

But chasing down a confident leader is always a bit trickier than it might seem. It’s easy to go too hard or fight too much, and then an athlete is left further back from the leading position than when they started. So Korda isn’t going to succumb to that noise. She’s going to go out on Sunday in Frisco, Texas, put her head down and play like she knows that she can, content to let the chips fall where they may as long as she gives herself an opportunity to hoist her second KPMG Women’s PGA Championship trophy.

“I know I’m coming from behind, but I never want to have that mentality of trying to chase because then you’re pressing too much,” Korda said. “So, I literally just focus on what is right in front of me if that opportunity comes about where I can be a little bit more aggressive. But what other girls are doing, or what the course is playing like, or what the conditions are like is out of my control.

“What I can control is being 100 percent prepared on the shot that’s in front of me, and that’s what I’m going to do.”