Korda getting major-ready in L.A. while seeking game's missing piece
By Amy Rogers
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Nelly Korda is the first to admit that her year has gotten off to a lackluster start. Korda recorded two top 10s through her first four starts of the season and has arrived at this week’s JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro hoping to find the piece that appears to be missing from her game.
“It's been not the best start to the year for me,” Korda said Wednesday at El Caballero Country Club. “Haven't really felt like myself with my game out on the golf course, especially with my irons, so hopefully I've got that kind of dialed in.”
If only Korda’s game came with the same sort of instruction manuals that accompany the LEGO sets she’s taken up building this season that would help her sort through her confusion on the golf course.
Korda says she has always loved playing with LEGO but it wasn’t until the start of this year that she began building large sets, which have become, for her, a kind of therapy. During the week of the Ford Championship Korda says she assembled three different LEGO sets, each with more than 500 pieces, with the help of fellow pro Stephanie Kyriacou. They built a chicken from Disney’s Moana, an orchid plant, and a Piranha Plant from Super Mario. At home, she’s in the process of constructing Simba from Disney’s Lion King.
“It's just another way to get your mind off things,” Korda said about her new hobby, which she said she’ll turn to when she doesn’t feel like reading a book or watching one of her favorite shows. “It's very intricate. Sometimes it says nine and up and I'm like, how are 9-year old’s doing this? Even I'm having a hard time doing this.”
Off the golf course, Korda has become adept at piecing together the building blocks of beautiful brick sculptures while assembling the pieces of her golf game has been more difficult. Korda says the challenge has been compounded by the injuries and health issues she’s dealt with in recent years which have created a lot of stop-start seasons that have kept her from getting into a groove with her game. In the past, when Korda has experienced that same feeling of disconnect on the golf course, she says the key to fighting through it has been simply playing more golf.
“Sometimes it just clicks and sometimes takes a little bit longer,” Korda said about piecing her game back together. “I think if I just put myself into under-pressure moments and I have more reps under my belt, that gets me a little bit more comfortable with my game and out there competing.”
Korda says her optimal schedule would mean playing 20 events over the course of the season, but in recent years she hasn’t been able to meet that number due to setbacks with her health. Those challenges have hampered her ability to practice, compete, and prepare for major championships. Through that, Korda says she's learned the value of being able to tee it up the week prior to major championships and that’s what made the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro a must-play event this season.
“I've kind of always dabbled with playing before a major, not playing before a major,” Korda said about competing this week. “This year I'm going to if I can and I have the opportunity to play before a major, I will be doing that.”
When Korda builds her LEGO sets on the road it’s difficult for her to transport the finished product back home with her to Florida. Nelly said she told her sister, Jessica, she considered leaving them as gifts for the residents’ homes she rents during tournament weeks.
“She was like, ‘that's expensive.’ I'm like, ‘yeah, I know,’ but it's a form of entertainment for me,” Korda said about gifting her LEGOs “I've made it a thing of mine.”
Korda isn’t building any LEGO sets this week in Los Angeles, so she won’t have to worry about whether or not to bring them home with her. But if she can find the missing piece she’s been seeking with her game she may have to figure out how to bring home a much bigger prize - the trophy.
