NAPLES, Fla. — Nelly Korda had a simple explanation for her winless 2025 season when the LPGA year wrapped on Sunday in Naples.
“It was a grind,” Korda said of the follow-up campaign to her seven-win 2024. “Success is never linear.”
While that’s true, each decision and each swing Korda made in 2025 played a role in the final outcome, sending ripples through a frustrating season for the LPGA’s biggest star. One shot in particular still hangs in Korda’s mind. It wound up being the defining shot of her season, just not in the way she hoped.
“Precisely No. 18 at the U.S. Open,” Korda said on Sunday about her final full swing at Erin Hills. “I actually hit that shot so good. Probably hit that shot the best that I did all year, and just because of the adrenaline I hit it probably, I don’t know, 10 yards too long and a little bit too left; was in the place that at the beginning of the week on Monday I was like, I cannot be here, and I was there. So if I could get one shot back, that would be it.”
Korda entered the week at Erin Hills preaching patience. The U.S. Women’s Open is the tournament she covets most. It’s also the one that has given her the most trouble throughout her career. Korda finished the final round of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach with an 80. She fired that same score during the opening round of the 2024 edition at Lancaster Country Club. The premier event in women’s golf has tormented her, but she showed up in Wisconsin with a plan to get in contention and change the narrative.
“If you want to feel it, you will feel it,” Korda said of the pressure of being expected to contend and win. “But I think what’s really important is just kind of sticking to your game plan and being really focused on what you’re doing present time, and that’s really helped me.”
Korda stuck to her patient approach at Erin Hills, and it paid off as she led the tournament in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green for the week. But when she reached the par-5 18th hole on Sunday, there was no more time for patience. Still trailing Maja Stark by three, Korda needed to make something happen to ratchet up the pressure on Stark as she came down the stretch. She split the fairway with her tee shot and then hammered her second toward the flag. The shot landed hole high but bounded over the green and into a valley. She wound up making bogey and finishing in a tie for second.
“When you come so close, and you kind of feel that adrenaline coming down 18, the one thing that you want to do is hold the trophy at the end of the day,” Korda said that day in Wisconsin. “And I’m not.
“Just an absolute heartbreaker,” Korda said. “But that’s golf.”
Korda’s 2025 mirrored her four days in Erin Hills. She was statistically very, very good. She was better off the tee and with the putter in 2025 than she was during her historic 2024 season. Her approach numbers are the same, and only her around-the-green play was worse.
And yet, all of that would have been moot had Korda’s final full swing at Erin Hills landed safely on the putting surface and given her a look at an eagle. She still would’ve needed to make the putt — she ranked 52nd in putting that week — and needed Stark to stumble coming home to have a chance. Crazier things in golf have happened than someone blowing what would’ve been a one or two-stroke lead when trying to close out their first major.
A successful U.S. Women’s Open comeback attempt would have been the defining moment of Korda’s career to this point. A win that would have meant more than any trophy she lifted in 2024. The rest of 2025 would have been house money.
But Korda’s adrenaline-fueled approach doomed any hope she had, and she left Wisconsin still in search of the major championship trophy she most desires.
The rest of her season was a combination of good golf and mediocre results. Korda wasn’t a factor in any of the other major championships, and she finished the season in third at the Tour Championship, six shots behind Jeeno Thitikul, who overtook Korda as World No. 1 in August.
It was a year that was hard to explain for Nelly Korda. She chalked it mostly up to being on the wrong side of golf’s “fine line.” The big picture of a winless season left Korda with a sense of pride in how she stayed healthy and poured herself into improving her game. That it all amounted to zero trophies being added to Korda’s case is nothing more than the reality of life in an individual sport.
“The highs are probably like seeing like the great flashes in my game where I’m very excited about the work that I put in,” Korda said. “Then some of the lows are like every girl can say out here, every pro can say that, you put so much time and effort into your craft and you just don’t play well. You just do it over and over and over again. Sometimes, you just go a little crazy.”
Korda went winless in 2023 and responded with a seven-win 2024 that included five wins in a row. The 2025 season could have been deflating for Korda, but it served as a reminder to lean on those around her to gain a different perspective and to focus on what she can control.
“I would just say expectations, listening to outside noises, really just sticking to what I know best, and that’s to keep everything simple,” Korda said.
In the end, 2025 brought questions and one regret for Nelly Korda. That one could’ve helped change everything.
