BRADENTON, Fla, — Nelly Korda rallied to win her hometown LPGA Drive On Championship and delay Lydia Ko‘s LPGA Corridor of Fame entry, outlasting the New Zealander on the second gap of a playoff after overcoming a three-stroke deficit with an eagle-birdie end.
In calmer circumstances after wind gusts to 30 mph at Bradenton Nation Membership, Korda received with a 3-foot par putt on the par-4 18th after Ko’s 4-footer caught the lip and spun out.
“I appear to at all times make it very dramatic and fascinating,” Korda mentioned. “So, there isn’t a higher feeling than to do it in entrance of a house crowd. What a day!”
Ko received the season-opening Event of Champions final week at house in Orlando for her twentieth tour victory to maneuver inside a degree of qualifying for the Corridor of Fame.
“It is sort of like, `What are you able to do?'” Ko mentioned. “We performed our hearts out till the very finish and we put ourself into the playoff. I attempted my greatest on the market.”
4 strokes forward of Ko starting play Sunday, Korda shot a 2-over 73 to match Ko at 11-under 273. Ko, taking part in within the group forward of Korda, additionally eagled the par-5 seventeenth in a 69.
Korda dropped 4 strokes in a three-hole stretch — making a bogey on the par-4 14th, a double bogey on the par-3 fifteenth and a bogey on the par-4 sixteenth — earlier than rallying with the eagle putt throughout the inexperienced on 17 and an method to a foot on 18.
“Gosh, I assumed that the match was over going into 17,” Korda mentioned. “I simply sort of gave myself an opportunity. I knew that if I rolled that eagle in I needed to birdie the final.”
On the primary additional journey down 18, Korda missed a 12-foot birdie attempt from the again fringe after Ko bought up-and-down for par after hitting to the grandstand wall over the inexperienced.
On the second playoff gap, Korda went lengthy to the wall and chipped to arrange the successful putt.
“Each win has a narrative,” mentioned Korda. “This one was positively – simply with the struggles of final 12 months and simply with at present as effectively, I assumed I fully misplaced it.”
Quickly after the victory, she talked to sister Jessica, the guy tour star who’s near giving start to her first baby — a boy.
“She was like, ‘I assumed you had been going to ship me into labor,'” the winner mentioned.
Ko three-putted after leaving her 30-foot birdie putt quick.
“Clearly, I three-putted the second playoff gap, however apart from that I do not really feel like I misplaced the match,” Ko mentioned. “I made an excellent eagle on 17, nice par on 18, after which Nelly simply went eagle as effectively after which birdied the final.”
Feeding off the house crowd, the 25-year-old Korda led wire-to-wire for the primary time in her profession en path to her ninth LPGA Tour victory and first because the 2022 Pelican Girls’s Championship.
“I believe even after I was down they had been so, so optimistic and preserving me in it,” Korda mentioned. “It was such a grind on the market, so backwards and forwards. I felt like I by no means actually bought something going. I simply can’t even imagine it proper now.”
Megan Khang was third at 8 beneath after a 72. Lucy Li (69) and Ayaka Furue (73) had been 7 beneath.
