Women’s sports continue to be on the rise.
Even after the conclusion of the women’s college basketball season a couple of weeks ago, with South Carolina defeating Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the national championship game to complete an undefeated season, women’s sports continue to gain popularity and record-breaking success.
This weekend, it came on the golf course as Nelly Korda won the first major of the year at the Chevron Championship for her fifth consecutive victory.
Korda, who defeated Maja Stark by two strokes Sunday, will look to break the LPGA record with her sixth straight win as early as next week at the JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles. There are also three events before the next major, the U.S. Women’s Open, from May 30 – June 2.
In the last 20 rounds, Korda has shot in the 70s only four times, including shooting back-to-back 1-over 73s in the first two rounds of last week’s T-Mobile Match Play event. Her scoring average over those last 20 rounds is a whopping 68.55.
During the Chevron Championship this week, Korda shot a first-round 4-under 68 before three 3-under 69s across the final three rounds to win by two.
Korda’s win streak began when she hoisted the LPGA Drive-On Championship in late January. Two months later, Korda won the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship on March 21. One week later, she won for the third straight week at the Ford Championship before winning last week’s T-Mobile Match Play event to make four straight wins.
The 25-year-old also became the third player to be No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings to win the Chevron Championship since the rankings were created in 2006, along with Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.
After securing her fifth straight win Sunday, Korda said the challenge was the work she had to do after making the turn.
“That back nine felt like the longest back nine of my entire life,” said Korda, who recorded two birdies and two bogeys across her final nine holes. “It was a little bit of a grind on the back nine, but I’m happy to get the win. I was definitely starting to feel it on the back nine, just the nerves setting in.
“It’s a major. It’s everything that I’ve always wanted as a little girl, to lift that major trophy. I can finally breathe now and just enjoy the moment because I was definitely really nervous.”
Related: Where Lopez and Sorenstam rank on best women’s golfers of all-time list
Where Nelly Korda’s record ranks
Nelly Korda’s record-tying fifth straight LPGA win Sunday afternoon joined Nancy Lopez in 1978 and Annika Sorenstam as the only players to win five straight LPGA events. It is also Korda’s second major title after winning the 2021 Women’s PGA Championship.
Her five-tournament winning streak, which has now amounted to 12 PGA Tour wins in her career at the age of 25, is definitely on the track of one of the best players in the history of women’s golf, if not there already. Her 12 LPGA Tour wins currently rank tied for 28th in tour history, along with Arya Jutanugarn, Sei Young Kim, and Hollis Stacy.
When looking at the game of the golf, male or female combined, no one has put together a five-tournament win streak right now, like Korda.
Scottie Scheffler is the closest, who won the RBC Heritage Monday morning for his fifth win in the last five starts. Scheffler, who led by five strokes midway through the back nine when play was suspended Sunday, won by three to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win a major followed by winning the next week.
Scheffler’s only blemish in his last five starts was a second-place finish at the Texas Children’s Houston Open when he lost by one stroke to one player.
Outside of that, the PGA Tour has belonged to Scheffler, who won both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Masters Tournament twice in the last three years. In addition, Scheffler also became the first player to win two straight Players Championships trophies.
Before this run together of both Korda and Scheffler, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy won three straight PGA Tour events in 2017 and 2014, respectively. No PGA Tour player has won five consecutive events since Tiger Woods in 2007 before the streak came to an end in 2008, a few months before his unforgettable major victory at the U.S. Open.
On the LPGA Tour, Korda became the first person to achieve four consecutive wins since Ochoa in 2008, when she won four times in four weeks, including a major win at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Korda also became the 10th player to win three straight LPGA events, joining Mickey Wright in 1962, Kathy Whitworth in 1969, Lopez in 1978, Beth Daniel in 1980, Sandra Hayne in 1971, Sorenstam in both 2002 and 2005, Ochoa in both 2007 and 2008, Inbee Park in 2013 and Jutanugarn in 2016.
When Korda tees it up next, she will try to become the first player on the LPGA or PGA Tour to win six straight events since Woods completed that feat in 1999-2000. Woods won the final four events of the 1999 season, including the Tour Championship, and won the first two events of the 2000 season, including the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
That is the class and the pedigree that Korda is currently on. It is definitely a good feeling every single week that a player can go out and succeed in five straight events, let alone have just one week going a player’s way.
Furthermore, being in the heart of women’s sports, Korda is easily giving herself an opportunity to go out and defend her Olympic Gold Medal from four years ago in less than four months when the Summer Games for the golf event gets underway in France from Aug. 7-10.