NAPLES, Fla. — The CME Group Tour Championship is anyone’s game. Literally. With the top 60 players in the season-long point standings in the field this week in Naples, Fla., every player teeing it up at Tiburón Golf Club has a great shot at taking home the $4 million first-place prize and the title of Race to the CME Globe champion.

But if recent performance is any indication, it just might be Nelly Korda’s game at the final event of the 2024 season.

The 26-year-old has had a historic year on the LPGA Tour, one that was made even more so on Sunday at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican when Korda won for a seventh time in Belleair, Fla. Collecting seven titles in one season wasn’t on Korda’s 2024 bingo card, let alone winning five of them in five consecutive starts. But the recently crowned Rolex Player of the Year is grateful for every experience she has gotten to have this year, even those that may not have been the most positive.

“It's been a crazy year. I'm grateful for all of it,” said Korda. “I am grateful for the highs, grateful for the lows, grateful to be doing what I love in front of people, hopefully inspiring the next generation. It's really tough to win out here against such great players. The caliber of players is really, really high out here. I would say to me, it's really, really nice to know that all the hard work that I put in with my team is paying off.”

Her win at The ANNIKA is certain to be one of the most special moments Korda has had on the golf course this year, and it wasn’t all because of the five consecutive birdies she made late at Pelican Golf Club to pull out the victory or the fact that her seventh 2024 title came at the event for which 72-time LPGA Tour winner Annika Sorenstam is the tournament namesake.

It was because of who was in the gallery.

Nelly’s younger brother, Sebastian, who is often busy with his professional tennis career, was on-site to watch his sister capture her 15th career LPGA Tour title, making a historic moment that much more incredible for Nelly, as she had no idea that he was going to be there to celebrate with her on 18 green.

“This is my first time winning in front of him. I haven't seen him in a couple of months, so it's nice to see him,” said Korda. “For him to drive an hour 40 with three holes remaining, one, he was very confident in me, and two, it’s really nice to have his support and be out here. We haven't seen each other since the middle of summer, and to hug him, it was really, really nice.”

Knowing how difficult it is to be an athlete competing at the highest level, Sebastian not only relates to what Nelly goes through week in and week out on the LPGA Tour but is super proud of what his sister has accomplished throughout her 2024 season and how she has handled the heat of the spotlight.

“It's pretty cool to watch her do her thing,” said Sebastian. “She's done so well this year, worked unbelievably hard. She's gone through a lot of things and always comes back fighting and has just gotten back to work. That's one of the things I admire about her is how hard of a worker she is. She's just overall an amazing athlete.”

Korda could continue her amazing run at the CME Group Tour Championship, looking as strong as ever coming into this week at Tiburón Golf Club after her impeccable showing at The ANNIKA. She was unsure how last week would go as she had to pull out of her scheduled starts in Asia because of a neck injury and hadn’t played in an LPGA Tour event since the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G in September, but it didn’t look like Korda had skipped much of a beat.

However, what was most impressive in Belleair, Fla., was Korda’s putting performance, as she putted lights out on the lightning-fast greens at Pelican Golf Club, burying multiple lengthy birdie and par putts en route to victory. Her flat stick seems to have been the difference-maker for Korda since she went through a brief lull over the summer after her victory at the Mizuho Americas Open and switched her putter from a Scotty Cameron to a TaylorMade ahead of the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews.

“I putted well really with the Scotty, the squareback at the beginning of the year, and then went throughout a little bit of a slump in the middle of the year and needed to look at something different,” Korda explained. “The Spider was something that sat really well after the Olympics. I putted really well. I put it into play at the British and then putted well at Solheim, played pretty well in Cincinnati. Then my next event after that was last week.

“Overall, I’m really happy with the putter, and sometimes you just need a changeup. It's never going to go our way full-time. It's nice to look at something different, occasionally.”

Past history at this venue also suggests the odds might be leaning in Korda’s favor. She has never finished worse than T19 at Tiburón Golf Club and has collected six top 10s at the CME Group Tour Championship since making her tournament debut in 2017, finishing in the top five on three separate occasions in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Couple that with the confidence she gleaned from her victory at last week The ANNIKA, and Korda definitely is the player to beat this week in Naples, Fla., if anyone wants a shot at the $4 million first-place prize, a delineation Korda has more than earned after what has been a stellar 2024 season on the LPGA Tour.

Nelly Korda Coming Into CME Group Tour Championship Looking as Strong as Ever

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