Nelly Korda won 7 times last year and hasn't lifted a trophy in 2025 despite similar stats. How is that possible?

There is so much parity on the LPGA Tour this season that 22 different players have won the first 21 events, the most in tour history. Six of those wins have come from rookies. Yet perhaps the most unfathomable part is that Nelly Korda is not one of those players after she won seven times in her dominant 2024 season.

What makes it all the more baffling is that performance-wise, Korda isn’t having an off year at all. In fact, she’s playing just as well as she did last year, statistically speaking, with the margins by comparison almost microscopically small heading into her start this week in the CPKC Women’s Open in Ontario, Canada.

The 27-year-old Korda recently fell to No. 2 in the World Rankings but is still one of the best to tee it up.

Korda has five top-10 finishes this season and has made all 13 cuts in stroke-play events. She’s second in scoring average to Jenno Thitikul at 69.87. Last year, Korda had an ever-so-slightly better scoring average at 69.56, also second to Thitikul’s 69.33.

So, what gives?

“It’s always like just a little bit of a question, like, ‘How? How am I up there?’ But it also is in a sense motivating, too, knowing that I am putting in all the work and playing well,” Korda said on Wednesday.

“Everything just hasn’t clicked. For you to win out here or to win in general, it’s so hard. Everything has to click. Bounces have to go your way. Everything just has to click. Unfortunately, it just hasn’t. But never say never. We still have a bunch of events left in the season. Doesn’t matter how you start, it’s how you finish, so we’ll see.”

We could point to the competition from Thitikul, the Thai star who grabbed the World No. 1 title from Korda two weeks ago. But the 22-year-old has only one win this season, at the Mizuho Americas Open in May, though she has bested Korda with eight top-10s and owns the tour’s best scoring average of 69.51.

Stacy Revere

Could it be that the top contenders are playing better? Not really. The LPGA doesn’t have an official tour-wide scoring average for this season, but it reports that the current average for the top 25 players is 70.48, just a bit lower than the 70.74 at this juncture last season.

In one example of the difference in Korda’s year, she won the 2024 Mizuho to cap a run of six wins in her first seven starts. The victory came with a 14-under total, five shots better than Thitikul. This year, Thitikul flipped things around by shooting 17 under, and while Korda opened with three 68s, then faded with a 73 on Sunday to finish six back.

Korda has been in contention on Sundays, but it’s not like she’s had a 54-hole lead and blown it. Nothing glaring like that. She’s been lurking, but never making the charge needed to win. A year ago at this time, she had 10 weekend rounds in the 60s; this year, it’s six.

Goodstorie

Nelly Korda won 7 times last year and hasn’t lifted a trophy in 2025 despite similar stats. How is that possible?

Related articles

Shane Lowry facing anxious wait as European Ryder Cup team takes shape

Rory McIlroy shows true colours as he admits ‘I’ll never complain about doing it’

Elijah Craig unveils limited-edition 2025 Ryder Cup bourbon inspired by New York

Michael Kim had a perfect reaction after Viktor Hovland knocked him out of the Tour Championship

Justin Thomas shares funny story about Tiger Woods faking a dropped call just so he could one-up him

Rory McIlroy cleaned out Augusta National on this item after he won the Masters