There’s a Korda in contention at The Chevron Championship. Rolex Rankings No. 27 Jessica Korda took advantage of Moving Day in Rancho Mirage, hitting 16 of 18 greens and 10 of 14 fairways en route to a 5-under 67 in round three, her lowest score of the season and her second-lowest at Mission Hills. Korda has finished in the top-15 once and the top-10 twice in this event, notching a tie for 11th in 2017 as well as ties for fourth and sixth in 2018 and 2019. Though she sits seven shots back of leader Jennifer Kupcho, Korda knows that anything can happen on Sunday at a major championship, especially at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course.
“It's a major so you know the girls up front are going to be nervous, and we're kind of chasing them down and they know that,” said Korda, who finished T4 at the 2018 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. “You always just kind of got to think that you have a chance no matter what and that's kind of the mentality you got to go in there with.”
The Chevron Championship marks Korda’s fifth start of the season and it’s been a tough go so far for the 29-year-old. She started strong with a solo seventh at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions but was forced to withdraw from the LPGA Drive On Championship at Crown Colony with a rib injury in the first round. Like many other players, Korda took a much-needed six weeks off during the Asian swing to rest and rehab her injury, returning to competition at last week’s JTBC Classic presented by Barbasol.
On Sunday as she makes her way around Mission Hills for the last time, Korda looks to join her sister Nelly as a major winner, the first sibling duo to do so since the 1900s, and make the final jump into Poppie’s Pond, the first American to do so since Brittany Lincicome in 2015.
“Palm Springs is so nice,” said Korda. “I'm definitely sad that we're leaving. It's one of the golf courses you always look forward to coming back to because you know it, and the more that you know the better you're going to play out here. I'm just trying to keep it somewhere in the middle of the green and make a putt. It's getting really firm, so being smart about where you're landing is pretty key. I don't know what it's going to play like tomorrow. We'll see I guess.”
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