THE CHEVRON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 20, 2023

Nelly Korda

The Club at Carlton Woods

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Nelly Korda after her first round at the Chevron Championship. Seven birdies on the card today, three bogeys. Can you just take us a little bit through some of the highlights of the round today?

NELLY KORDA: Yeah, I took advantage of the par-5s today. I think I birdied them all, so that was important, as I'm a bit of a longer hitter. Overall I played pretty well. It was nice to finish the way I did with just a tap-in birdie, but made a couple mistakes here and there where it was more of the yardage where I was a little too aggressive and I left myself a little short-sided chip, and with the rain that we got during the delay, I wasn't sure how it was going to react, bump-and-running it or flopping it. Just made a couple of mistakes there, but that's a given at a major championship.

Q. How did the rain affect the course today?

NELLY KORDA: It was just a little softer, but I mean, we didn't get that much rain. It's just more around the greens where it just becomes a little softer, where typically if it was a little burnt out I would have hit a bump-and-run, where now I wasn't sure if that was going to react the way it normally would.

Q. Can you take us through the birdies on the last two holes, what you hit?

NELLY KORDA: Yeah, I hit a hybrid into the par-5. I had 217 in, and I just hit a controlled hybrid to just get me to the middle of the green. I didn't really want to go over because that's a tough chip if you're in the rough or it's a downhill chip.

Then I kind of hit my first putt probably four feet by and made the comebacker, and then my last hole, I had 105 in, and I hit a small controlled 50-degree to a foot, tapped that in.

Q. What did you do during the delay?

NELLY KORDA: Hung out with my parents in dining. Pretty chill.

Q. You mentioned earlier this week that you were kind of struggling with your swing this year. Have you and Jaime been working on anything in particular to fix that?

NELLY KORDA: Yeah, I honestly haven't seen Jaime that much, just because he's been pretty busy with the guys on the PGA TOUR, but just maintenance stuff. I've been playing this game for long enough that I kind of know what I need to do, so I went back home and drilled it and then made sure that I was in playing mode towards the end of the week coming into this week.

Q. What is it specifically about the positions that you're trying to get into?

NELLY KORDA: For me, I make the majority of my mistakes on my backswing. I get out of position, and then it's just harder for me to get it back to. I have to work harder, so then the mistakes of me hitting it right and left come more into play, so I'm just trying to get it on one plane going back and one plane going down, as simple as possible. But it's been giving me a little bit of a hard time this year. With playing in different conditions and traveling, I think that's what kind of threw me off a good bit was actually coming back from Singapore.

I felt like my balance was so off the first week or week and a half, so I feel like, because I haven't traveled overseas that much in the past couple years, that was something that actually plays a big part in travel is your balance is off, and then I start to visualize opening up my face going on my way back, and that just caused so much kind of damage to my swing.

Q. Have you been getting underneath the plane from the top?

NELLY KORDA: No, I've honestly just been swinging my face kind of open, and then at the top it's not in the position it needs to be, so I'm kind of stuck, and then it can go either right or left, it depends on if I flip it or not, what I do. I'm just trying to get it back on to one plane.

Q. When you're home working on this on your own, are you videoing --

NELLY KORDA: Oh, yeah, so many videos on my phone, it's disgusting.

Q. Is that with your dad?

NELLY KORDA: No, I have one of those tripods, do it myself. If people knew how many swing videos I had on my phone and if I had to ask my dad to video that many swings, he would boycott every one of my practices.

Q. Could you ballpark how many videos you have?

NELLY KORDA: I mean, videos, I probably have -- I don't even know. I mean, probably 6,000 swing videos. Maybe more. Like I go through a practice session and I'll probably video maybe 20 or 30 until I really like it, and then I play that one.

But I have been told that I need to stop, or I just need to delete them all and keep the one I want.

Q. Do you have like iCloud storage --

NELLY KORDA: Yeah, a lot. Like I keep upgrading.

Q. Did that balance at all affect you in real life of just adjusting and coming back from Singapore?

NELLY KORDA: No. I mean, yeah, I think everyone struggles a little bit with jet lag, but that was the first time I actually felt like my balance was kind of off at practice, but I guess I haven't done it in a while, so just get used to it.

Q. Have you always been into the technical side of your swing, or has that developed as you've gotten older?

NELLY KORDA: I think it's definitely developed maybe as I've gotten older. I'm actually not technical at all, even though I'm looking at my swing. I'm just seeing if I'm hitting my spots.

It's hard because I grew up in an academy setting where I had a coach behind me, and after every shot he would tell me if my positions were good, but then when you're by yourself, which a majority of the time when I'm practicing I am, it's hard to know if one swing was good and one swing was not in my positions because your feel is different every day. That's why I over-obsess with videoing. It's just to check to see if I'm actually hitting the positions I want.

Q. Were you coming into this week? Were you hitting the positions?

NELLY KORDA: Yes, I was, yeah. It was much better. I was content.