Nelly Korda fought hard throughout her Thursday round at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. She signed for a 3-under 69 and currently leads the field by one stroke with half the field left to play.
Korda began her day on the back nine and went out in 33 strokes. She recorded four birdies in her first five holes.
Despite carding a 69, the Florida resident had to scramble throughout her first round. The Douglass fir, red cedar and hemlock trees on the Sahalee Country Club course did their jobs as they made Korda work for her score.
“If you try and be aggressive when you’ve hit it offline, it just bites you in the butt,” Korda said after her first round. “Overall, I think I played pretty well. I took my chances where I could and I played safe the majority of the round.”
She made birdies on holes 13-15 before to get to 3-under. Korda moved to 4-under after a birdie on the 4th. However, the 25-year-old coughed up two shots on the fourth as the 14-time LPGA winner made a double-bogey.
“This entire golf course is so demanding. I had to make some pretty good up-and-downs,” Korda said.
Korda closed her round with a 15-foot birdie putt on the 9th to get back to 3-under on the day, giving her some much-needed momentum.
It is a much better start than her last major championship start. Three weeks ago, Korda shot an 80 at Lancaster Country Club in the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open. She shot 10 strokes better on Friday with an even-par 70 but missed her first cut of the 2024 season.
The 2-time major winner also missed the cut at last week’s Meijer LPGA Classic after she shot a 76 and 67. It is the first time all season that the No. 1 ranked player in the world missed consecutive cuts. Prior to that, she won the Mizuho Americas Open for her sixth victory of the year.
Korda made history by winning five straight before she settled for a T7 at the Cognizant Founders Cup.
She will tee off with Ruoning Yin and Hannah Green at 1:28 p.m. PT or 4:28 p.m. ET for her second round of the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.