The majors season continues this week with the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Once again, World No. 1 Nelly Korda is favored to win the title. So, alarm bells went off when she showed up to her press conference wearing therapeutic tape around her neck.
Korda confirmed that she was injured while training for the event, which starts on June 19 at the Field Ranch East course in Frisco, Texas:
“I hit a shot out of the rough yesterday [Monday], and my neck went into a full spasm. It’s getting better, but yeah, it was not very good yesterday,” she said.
The two-time major winner also confirmed that her swing has been affected by the injury:
“Obviously with the injury that I had last year, every single time something kind of flares up in my neck now, I think I feel it a little bit more than what I used to.”
“But I have a great physio who takes care of me. Trying to work through it, but I’ll be ready by Thursday.”
Since she is confident that she will be ready to compete, Nelly Korda did not appear too concerned about how the injury might affect the outcome of the week. She was more disappointed about having to miss the Champions Dinner, which was hosted by last year’s winner, Amy Yang.
“I didn’t go because of my neck. I was so sad to miss it, though,” she said.
“I messaged Amy; the menu looked unbelievable. I love Korean food. So I was really jealous.”
“At the end of the day, I need to prioritize my body. So I wasn’t able to go, but I missed out on a good dinner.”
Korda won the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, her first career major title. To date, she has competed in 44 tournaments at this level, achieving two wins and 11 other top-10 finishes, including three second-place finishes.
Coincidentally, she came to Frisco off her runner up finish at the U.S. Women’s Open, where she lost to Maja Stark.
“I think it just makes you hungrier…there’s nothing like it being in contention, so I think that’s kind of what makes me hungrier to come back and to work harder and put myself into that position,” she said
“At the end of the day, I did put myself into that position. I was still in contention and feeling the adrenaline rush on 18, trying to win a major championship. That’s the reason why I play this game, and I love it so much.”
“You can look at it in a positive way, you can look at it in a negative way, but at the end of the day, three weeks after I can spin it in a positive way, and it’s going to make me hopefully hungrier.”
Korda will tee off at 9:28 a.m. Eastern Time in a group with two other favorites: Lydia Ko and Jeeno Thitikul.
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