CHASKA, Minn. — Nelly Korda wasted no time picking up her tee. Usually, that means two things: it’s really good, or it’s really bad.
This was the latter.
“I just overturned it,” Korda said of her tee shot on the par-4 16th hole at Hazeltine National, which hooked into the creek that runs up the left side of the course’s signature hole. “By now you just feel it when it’s bad. So the wind was off the right and I actually think I just made too fast of a swing and I was kind of in between clubs.
“It’s a pretty intimidating tee shot and I just didn’t really like the way I hit it off the start.”
Korda took a drop, wedged on and then three-putted from 35 feet for a messy double bogey. It was her only double of the day and came after she birdied three in a five-hole span.
She still shot a two-under 70 in the first round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which was good enough to stay in the top 10 of Thursday’s morning wave, although she’s seven back of early leader Ina Yoon, who shot 63.
There’s no shortage of pressure on Korda this week, where she’s attempting to become just the third player in LPGA history to win the first three majors of the season. A win this week would also send Korda, still just 27 years old, into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
She started early Thursday morning — with a large contingent of fans following along — and turned in one under. She added birdies on 11, 13 and 15 before she reached the 378-yard par-4 16th hole, a short par-4 played along Hazeltine Lake that has a tight driving window — the lake right, creek left — and most of the green guarded by water. During the 2016 Ryder Cup, the 16th was changed to the 5th hole to guarantee it played a role in the matches. Korda hit driver on Thursday.
“It’s between a 3-wood and driver,” Korda said. “You can’t lay it too far back because then you’re blocked out by the trees and you have a long shot into a pretty difficult green that is pretty undulated, so you got to risk it.”
Korda begins her second round at 2:42 p.m. ET on Friday.
“Honestly just made one bad swing, which ended up in a double,” Korda said. “But overall, pretty happy with my day.”
