Jessica Korda posted a runner-up finish at the opening event of the season and it looked like the 22-year-old’s follow-up to a career year in 2014 would be an even better one in 2015.
But golf’s a notoriously fickle game and frequently has other plans. Korda found that, as she struggled to find the form that saw her win twice in 2014 and struggled to even make cuts for a significant portion of the summer. She even fell off of the American Solheim Cup team after opening the season fifth in the points standings.
Whether it was fuel to the fire or simply additional time to practice for Korda, she’s come out rejuvenated after watching her American comrades win in Germany and is back at the top of the leaderboard after a third-round 6-under-par 65 Saturday at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia - the first event back after the Solheim Cup.
“It’s a confidence builder. I haven’t been in this position in such a long time, since basically January,” Korda said. “It’s just so nice to be back.”
At 12-under-par, Korda leads a host of capable contenders. Stacy Lewis (65) and Ha Na Jang (71) are two shots back of Korda at 10-under, and world No. 2 Lydia Ko (68), defending champion Shanshan Feng (69), and Xi Yu Lin (71) all are within three shots at 9-under, which was how much Feng trailed a year ago when she came back to win on Sunday in a pairing with Ko.
Shockingly, a win here by Lewis would mark the first of the year for the 11-time LPGA winner. Outside of Korda and Lewis, no one is more surprised than Lydia Ko that we’ve reached a mid-October Sunday with Korda and Lewis, two multi-winners in 2014, looking for their first win of the season.
“Jess is such a solid player. You know, her iron game is great, and I think she’s one of the best putters on the tour,” Ko said. “Stacy, she’s always up there. She’s always contending and always around the leaders or leading. So I’m pretty -- I said before all this Asia swing started that she will make -- have a win by the end of the season. She shot like 1-over the first day, but look how she comes back the next two days.”
Even Korda’s shocked at how quickly she’s turned her game around this week. Her game was in such a rut that she told United States Captain Juli Inskter that she wasn’t worthy of being selected as one of the two captain’s picks and to pick someone who could help her.
“I really played myself off of the team so I kind of knew that I wasn’t going to get on there. I told Juli that I had bigger things to worry about,” Korda said. “I had been playing so poorly that Solheim wasn’t even on my radar at that point. That week I made the cut and I was so happy with myself and then at Evian I missed the cut again and so I was really just happy to sit at home on the couch and watch the girls do their thing because I don’t think I could have contributed to the team like I know I should have.”
But a new coach and a new attitude has her back in position for her fourth career win Sunday. But on this golf course anything can happen, and it’ll take another birdie barrage to hold off the likes of Lewis, who wants a win equally as bad as Korda to snap a frustrating 2015 in which she has seven top-3s, including four runner-ups, but no wins.
“This golf course is just a shootout,” Lewis said. “It’s just who is going to make the most birdies at the end of the week. Just nice to be back somewhere close to the lead and hopefully just within a few shots going into tomorrow.”
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