There aren’t many names in women’s professional golf who can match the explosive run that Nelly Korda has seen in recent times. Ranked No 1 on the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda plays at a level that challenges the best, and the proof is in her mind-boggling run of six wins in seven starts between January-May 2024 on the LPGA Tour. We delve into the illustrious career, endorsem*nts and net worth of top golfer Nelly Korda, who’ll be competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Her journey has been shaped by skill and perseverance, and the recent stretch helped Korda take her tally to 14 wins on the LPGA. As a two-time Major winner and gold medallist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Korda will next play at the 2024 Paris Olympics women’s golf event from August 7 to 10. The tournament is held at Le Golf National and will see her competing alongside fellow Team USA golfers Lilia Vu and Rose Zhang.
Well on her way to being counted among the greatest in women’s golf, we chart the American athlete’s career, and her earnings and net worth, which have kept pace with her meteoric rise.
Get to know Nelly Korda: Net worth, career and endorsem*nts
Exceptional sporting genes
Korda comes from a family of famous athletes. Her father, Petr Korda, was a well-known Czech tennis professional who finished second at the 1992 French Open and won the 1998 Australian Open in 1998. Her mother, Regina Rajchrtova, was also a former professional tennis player who represented Czechoslovakia at the Seoul 1988 Summer Olympics. Younger brother Sebastian is an American tennis pro with one ATP singles and one doubles championship.
Her elder sister Jessica plays on the LPGA Tour and has won six times till date. Like her sister, Korda chose golf over tennis and made rapid progress. Hailing from such a background, it’s no wonder that Korda has reached such heights at only 25.
Solid amateur grounding
Korda’s career began early, largely inspired by her family’s sporting interests. She took to golf at six and had made an impression even before turning professional by demonstrating her competence in top junior and amateur competitions.
Korda was a member of the winning 2015 Junior Solheim Cup squad, and also won the 2015 Harder Hall Invitational, 2015 PING Invitational, and 2015 AJGA Rolex Junior All-American title. She qualified for the Women’s US Open in 2013, made cut and finished tied T64.
Turning professional
Korda turned professional in 2016, and her swift transition was testament to the robust foundation she built in her amateur days. She earned her LPGA card by finishing top-10 at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, which set the stage for her rookie season in 2017.
The breakthrough moment on Tour came in 2018, when she won her first tour event at the Swinging Skirts LPGA Taiwan Championship. The win was not just a personal triumph but a landmark for the family, as it aligned her success with that of sister Jessica, and established them as a powerhouse sibling duo in women’s pro golf. The week also marked Korda crossing the USD 1 million mark in career earnings.
Fostering the winning habit
In February 2019, Korda won the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, and with it broke into the top-10 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings for the first time. In September, she won the Open de France Dames at Golf du Medoc Resort in France by eight shots.
Two months down, she defended her title at the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA by prevailing in a playoff. It was an unprecedented season in which Korda had 12 top-10 finishes, and earned USD 1,665,546 in prize money. Another landmark week was the CME Group Tour Championship where Korda’s T3 finish helped her breach the USD 3 million mark in career earnings.
The 2020 ANA Inspiration stands out for Korda as she had a career-best result in a Major (T2) at that point, and earned an impressive USD 245,480. With three more top-10s, her season earnings stood at USD 575,894.
Major breakthroughs
Compared to 2020, Korda had a breakout year on the LPGA in 2021. In 17 starts, she missed cut just once and her 10 top-10s included wins at the Gainbridge LPGA, Meijer LPGA Classic, her maiden Major title at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and Pelican Women’s Championship, which were instrumental in the season earnings of USD 2,382,198.
Other than the cheque of USD 675,000, the PGA Championship highlighted Korda’s ability to win under tremendous pressure that characterise Major championships. The victory signalled her ascent atop the Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Turning out in US colours brought the best out of Korda as she beat Japan’s Inami Mone by a stroke for gold at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, and at the Solheim Cup team event.
2022 a mixed bag
Season after season, Korda’s nagging consistency has been showing up. In January 2022, Korda eclipsed Stacy Lewis as the American woman golfer to spend the most time at the peak on the Women’s World Golf Rankings with 29 straight weeks as World No 1.
A few weeks later, she lost the top spot, and in March came the announcement that she had suffered a blood clot in the arm, preventing her from playing the Chevron Championship, the year’s first Major.
The absence ended at the US Women’s Open, where she finished T8. But despite missing out on action, Korda had eight top- 10s, including the win at the Pelican Women’s Championship for her only win of 2022, in which her season earnings were USD 1,418,725.
While fulfilling her duties as a team player for the US at the International Crow and Solheim Cup, the Florida resident regained the No 1 spot with a third spot in 2023’s first Major, the Chevron Championship.
Despite a back issue, which kept her out of action for a while, Korda posted 9 top-10s with a season best runner-up at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. With season earnings of USD 1,397,796, Korda’s only win that year came at the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Team Series in London.
Historic 2024 streak
The 2024 season is just half done, but Korda has already made it a season on LPGA that will be spoken of for long. The win at the Mizuho Americas Open in May, Korda’s sixth win in seven starts, made her the first to do so in a season since Inbee Park in 2013, and the second American golfer after Beth Daniel, won seven times in 1990.
The accolades go on. As just the eighth player to win six or more times in a year, Korda joined an illustrious league, one that has Betsy King, Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Lorena Ochoa, Yani Tseng, Daniel and Park. She also caught up with Sorenstam as the fastest to win six times in a season since 1980.
Her earlier five consecutive wins in 2024 are the LPGA Drive On Championship, FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship, Ford Championship presented by KCC, T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards and the Chevron Championship.
Career earnings and net worth of Nelly Korda
Korda’s earnings have been on the upswing, and while the 2021 season has been the most lucrative financially with on-course earnings of USD 2,382,198, 2024 can be expected to surpass the figure by a distance as her earnings as of June 2024 are at USD 2,943,708.
In 2021, Forbes ranked her as the ninth highest-paid woman athlete with on-field earnings of USD 2.4 million and off-field deals worth USD 3.5 million.
In 2022, she featured on Forbes’ 30-under-30 list in the sports category, and last year, Forbes listed her 11th on the richest women athletes, earning USD 8.2 million (USD 1.7 million on course, and USD 6.5 million off the golf course).
While her career earnings on the LPGA stand at USD 11,880,981, Celebrity Net Worth pegs the net worth of Nelly Korda at around USD 10 million.
Endorsem*nts and sponsors
As one of the finest on the LPGA, Nelly Korda has landed big endorsem*nt deals. She inked an agreement with Swedish sportswear manufacturer J. Lindeberg in January 2021, and by November 2022, they released a golf line jointly.
At the beginning of 2023, Korda saw an upswing, and the former Titleist ambassador switched to TaylorMade clubs and balls and wears Nike apparel and footwear.
Her other major sponsors include BMW Group, Tumi, Cisco, Delta Air Lines, Goldman Sachs, Richard Mille, T-Mobile, WHOOP, Franklin Templeton, UKG, and Grant Thornton.
More about Nelly Korda here.
(Main and featured image: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
