PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Nelly Korda stood over her tee shot on Pebble Beach’s seventh hole with one, repeated thought:
“Hole-in-one, hole-in-one.”
She nearly manifested an ace, hitting a pitching wedge on the short, famed par 3 to within inches of the cup. Had her ball been a little more kind it would have been, she estimated, her first hole-in-one since she was a pre-teen.
Korda has experienced playing Pebble Beach Golf Links on a video game, but Monday was the real thing.
She got a close-up of the beauty: “Amazing. The views on every hole, I feel like you get to a hole and you’re like, this is my favorite view, and then you get to another hole and, no, this is actually my favorite view.”
She got a taste of atmosphere as well: “The air is a little heavier here, so I would say my balls are probably flying close to 7 to 10 yards shorter, depending obviously on the wind, as well.”
She experienced the fairway slopes that create consistently uneven lies. And, most notably, she got a first-hand look at the size of the greens.
“Probably the smallest greens I’ve ever seen,” she said.
This is coming off playing the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol, which offered up some of the biggest greens complexes players will ever see. Greens that Korda struggled to hit, in shooting 76-77 to miss the cut.
Korda said she had a two-way miss two weeks ago. She hopped a flight out immediately that Friday and went to work with her coaches, David Whelan and Jamie Mulligan, as well as her dad, Petr.
“I just put my head down and grinded. I love that about golf. I think no one knows everything and no one is an expert, and I think that this is the beauty of the game is that everyone experiences highs and lows,” she said.
Pebble offers an instant shot at atonement for Baltusrol. It also offers a completely different test. Korda noted the need to fly the ball onto the green, no running it up, like was optional at the Women’s PGA.
And this putting surface is Poa. Bumpy, frustrating, unpredictable Poa.
Patience, Korda said, “is going to be very crucial this week.”
That virtue has definitely been tested this year. The 24-year-old started the season with six top-6 finishes in her first seven starts – but no wins. She has recently battled a back injury and, in addition to her KPMG performance, missed the cut in her previous start at the Cognizant Founders Cup.
Still, she’s ranked second in the world and, physically, she said, “I feel really good.”
Monday was a good starter. She has two more days to figure out the nuances – which she enjoys doing on her own, through on-course practice – and then begins the third major of the season: the U.S. Women’s Open, at Pebble Beach, with a $10 million purse.
“It’s amazing to see we’re making these massive strides forward, not only with the increase in purses but the venues we get to play, the rich history that we just get to be a part of,” she said. “I think that’s our little piece of history, as well.”
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