BELLEAIR, Fla. – Nelly Korda is back on the LPGA tour after a month-long absence, joining the 108-player field at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican Golf Club this week.
This marks Korda’s return from her third bout with neck issues since last summer, when she missed eight weeks of competition. She hasn’t played since tying for fourth at the Lotte Championship in early October – her eighth top-10 finish in what’s been an uncharacteristically winless season for the world No. 2.
Korda described her recent break as mainly preventative, drawing from lessons learned after her 2022 blood clot scare.
“The thing with injuries and how many we travel and train, like you’re never pain-free,” Korda said. “If you go to any athlete across all sports and ask them if they’re pain-free, they’re going to tell you that they’re not. So, last year was probably, I’m not going lie, one of my worst injuries ever. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to play the rest of the year. I thought I was out for the season. And if I’m starting to feel that pain a little bit, and I know that could possibly recur, I have to prioritize my body.”
During her hiatus, Korda didn’t touch a club for almost three weeks. Instead, she focused on rehabilitation that included an unusual training device called the Iron Neck.
“It pretty much hooks up to a band, and you’re trying to hold the positions to strength train the muscles in your neck from all different angles,” she explained. “F1 drivers use it a lot to strength train their neck.”
Korda also used the downtime to make equipment adjustments, switching from TaylorMade P•7MC irons to P•7CBs in search of more height on her approach shots.
Currently ranked 10th in CME points, Korda has already secured her spot in next week’s 60-player CME Group Tour Championship. That gives her two more events to avoid her first winless season since 2020.
“It’s definitely been a weird year, but… I’ve had years where I haven’t won and I played great golf; then the next year I won a few,” said Korda, who followed up a winless 2020 with five victories in 2021 and added seven more wins last year.
“It’s just sports. It’s golf. You can’t expect to win. You can expect to put in 100%: 100% into your body, 100% in your routine, 100% into your practice, have no distractions. That’s what I can control, and that is what I will control. But everything else is kind of out of my control.”
