After an unbelievable spring that noticed her win 5 consecutive tournaments and 6 total, the LPGA has awarded World No. 1 Nelly Korda with its Rolex Participant of the Yr award for 2024.
It’s the primary time Korda has earned this honor.
“Profitable the Rolex Participant of the Yr means a lot to me,” Korda mentioned.
“This season has had its highs and challenges, and I’m simply actually grateful for the folks round me who’ve helped me get right here. It’s been a staff effort, and I’m proud to share this second with them.”
Korda’s season started with a T-16 on the Hilton Grand Holidays Event of Champions in her native Florida. She then went on to win her subsequent 5 begins, together with a victory at The Chevron Championship, the primary main of the season. A tie for seventh on the Cognizant Founders Cup in early Could ended her profitable streak at 5. However she obtained again to her profitable methods the next week at Liberty Nationwide. She fended off Australian Hannah Inexperienced by a stroke, thus clinching win quantity six.
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Korda has not received since then, having endured some difficult stretches. She struggled on the U.S. Ladies’s Open on the finish of Could and missed the minimize—primarily because of her eye-opening 10 on the par-3 twelfth gap at Lancaster Nation Membership. One other missed minimize adopted on the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship at Sahalee in June. However she made the weekend on the Amundi Evian Championship in July.
Then, along with her sport again in kind in August, Korda held the lead on the again 9 at St. Andrews within the AIG Ladies’s Open. However a expensive double-bogey on the par-5 14th sealed her destiny. She completed in a tie for second with Lilia Vu—who took dwelling Participant of the Yr honors final yr—as the 2 People completed two strokes again of champion Lydia Ko.
Talking of Vu, Korda’s Participant of the Yr honors marks the primary time People have received this award in back-to-back years since Betsy King and Beth Daniel did so in 1993 and 1994. Korda is the twenty seventh totally different recipient of this award, which dates again to 1966.
After all, Korda and Vu helped the U.S. win their first Solheim Cup since 2017 in September. In her fourth look on Crew USA, Korda received three factors for the People and Captain Stacy Lewis this yr. It additionally marked the primary occasion Korda performed on a profitable Solheim Cup staff.
However since Korda had so many trials and tribulations all through her summer season, Lewis felt that many golf followers had “forgotten” what she completed earlier this season.
“It’s being forgotten about, which is loopy to me,” Lewis mentioned when requested about Korda’s season in an unique interview with SB Nation.
“To win six occasions in a row, and to do it on very totally different golf programs, very totally different climate. You’ll be able to see her development at this yr’s Solheim Cup in comparison with final yr. She was rather more ready to be the chief, the primary individual going out in that first match. Together with her begin to this yr, she’s grown leaps and bounds simply from these experiences, and you’ll inform she’s realized alongside the best way. And, , there’s quite a lot of discuss in regards to the Participant of the Yr and who ought to win it. However whoever has essentially the most wins must be Participant of the Yr.”
Fortunately for Korda, Lewis, who made these feedback a number of weeks after the Solheim Cup, was appropriate in her assumption. Korda is the 2024 Participant of the Yr, and rightfully so.
Every time golf followers assume again to this previous LPGA season, they’ll keep in mind Korda’s wins and her management on the Solheim Cup, not the missed cuts at Lancaster and Sahalee. She was the perfect participant—and the largest story—in girls’s golf all season, and admittedly, no one else deserved to take dwelling this award as a lot as she did.
Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By means of. You should definitely try @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko as nicely.
