“When I get home, I’ll put her suitcases at the door and she can find somewhere else to sleep tonight”. The one speaking is Nelly Korda and the one who will have to move is Megan Khang, a guest this week at her house in Bradenton, Florida, the venue of the tournament. The reason for this ‘disagreement’ is that both will go out this Sunday in the stellar match of the LPGA Drive On Championship after the third round held this Saturday. Fate has wanted them to be precisely the ones who fight for victory in Florida.
Obviously, Korda’s comment was nothing more than a joke, but the situation is still quite amusing. Both are very good friends, inseparable in the Solheim Cup, and from now until the end of the tournament they will be intimate enemies. It would be nice to hear the conversations tonight at Nelly’s house, very close to the Bradenton Country Club, where the second tournament of the year of the LPGA Tour is being held.
Korda will not only have the advantage of playing at home, but she will also start as a clear leader. A majestic finish, with an eagle from the bunker on the 17th and a birdie on the 18th, with a putt of about six meters, has allowed her to sign a card of 68 strokes and has given her a tasty four-stroke lead over Khang, Ayaka Furue and Lydia Ko. The New Zealander is the one who has been left out of the stellar match after handing in a card of 69 strokes, on a day where she has not been so precise with the irons.
A SANDY EAGLE?!?! 😱🤯@NellyKorda is putting on a show 🤩 pic.twitter.com/HypPJfKv7d
— LPGA (@LPGA) January 27, 2024
One more birdie for good measure 🐥@NellyKorda is unbelievably good at this game 🤯 pic.twitter.com/QDTMoFrmJd
— LPGA (@LPGA) January 27, 2024
Meanwhile, Nelly continues with her tee to green exhibition. She is playing with the set square and the ruler. You can count on one hand the fairways she has missed and there is only one player in the entire tournament who has caught more greens, precisely the Japanese Furue. Korda has putted for birdie on 49 of the 54 holes she has played. Beastly.
Really, four strokes seem like a lot in favor of a player like Korda, but it wouldn’t be the first time she has let a good lead slip away. She has against her that all eyes will be on her, while there is less pressure from behind.
It was not a good moving day for Azahara Muñoz (-1). The Malaga native, the only Spaniard who made the cut, has handed in a score of 75 strokes, four over par, and has lost a lot of ground. She has fallen to 45th place. The main problem this Saturday were the shots to green. She has only putted on eight occasions for birdie, so she has spent more time saving difficult situations than trying to recover strokes on the course. Today she made one birdie and five bogeys. The worst moment came at the start of the second round, with four errors between the 10th and 14th.
The most positive thing is that there are still 18 holes to complete the tournament, enough margin to recover a good part of the ground lost this Saturday. The goal is to recover from tee to green the good feelings of Thursday.
