Nelly Korda has one of the sweetest swings in golf, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t work at it. The Solheim Cup star has had quite the season in 2024, with six wins coming in the space of just seven starts on the LPGA Tour.
This week Nelly tees it up in a bid to end Team USA's Solheim drought and propel her team to victory – starting with her round one match alongside partner, Allisen Corpuz, who make up Team USA's first pairing of the Solheim Cup.
In this article, Nelly Korda shares how she prepares for each round and offers a few expert tips to help amateur golfers improve their game...
Solheim Cup Star Nelly Korda's Game Plan For Shooting Lower Scores
What is the focus of your pre-round warm-up?
It’s more that I’m working on my strike. It’s about finding my timing. I typically start about an hour and five minutes before my tee time. I want to make sure my body and muscles are loose. I start off with pitch shots on the range and work my way up through my bag. I am mainly just working on impact.
On the putting green, I do a drill because your eye-line and eyesight change every single day, so doing a line drill is really important as you start your putting. Try it for five minutes to make sure you dial in your alignment. Once you do that, you work on your distance.
What is the best way for recreational golfers to prepare for a round?
I would say go to the course with a routine. I feel like people get really messed up by trying a bunch of different things. If you’re consistent, you have a routine and you stick to that every time, you won’t get better right away, but over time you will. You can’t make changes and expect to see a result right away. It’s about consistency.
What fundamentals do we want to be checking during our warm-up?
The first thing you want to check is if you’re gripping it correctly – it makes a huge difference in your swing. You could easily be too weak or too strong and it will affect where the face of the club is. So grip is important, as well as stance and where your weight is. Once you get those fundamentals sorted, it’s much easier to work on consistency and shooting lower numbers.
Bunkers
How can we improve the way we practise and play out of bunkers?
Bunkers are all about the strike. My short-game coach makes me hit shots out of bunkers every single day and just focus on the strike of the ball and how it sounds. One of my favourite practice drills is to draw a line in the sand one inch behind the ball. Try to strike it there.
A lot of recreational golfers either get it too heavy or they hit the ball first and top it, so make sure you strike the ball an inch behind and focus on getting more sand – that’s how you’ll get the right height on your shot.
Do you want to hit a certain number of practice bunker shots like this in order to get the confidence pre-round?
It doesn’t matter about the total number of times you hit it and it really doesn’t matter how far you hit these shots. I would just focus on the strike, then you can start thinking about distance after.
You don’t want to focus on distance first. It’s like when you started playing golf as a child, you didn’t go to the range first. The first thing I ever did was work on fundamentals with a coach. At that point, it doesn’t matter about strike, but once you get your fundamentals sorted then everything is so much easier.
When it comes to bunkers, you need to get your strike consistent and make sure you’re using the bounce of the club and opening the clubface. Once you do that, then you can turn your attention to how far it goes.
Chipping
How should we approach pre-round chipping practice?
What I work on before my rounds is to make sure I’m keeping my head still. You have to be pretty quiet while chipping and ensure you don’t lose your angles in your legs. A lot of people get straight-legged when they hit it and they either chunk it – they move their head too much – or they top it. I would say being still with head and body is very important in chipping.
Irons
What’s a good swing thought over an iron shot?
Obviously every person has different tendencies and me and my coach try to keep my swing as simple as it possibly gets. One of my habits is to move my legs a little too much on irons and woods, so I try and keep my lower body a little more still.
Tee Shots
What should we be thinking as we stand over tee shots?
You’re definitely putting a different swing on driver shots versus iron shots. With irons, you’re thinking more ‘attack the ground’, and with the driver you’re trying to hit up on it a little more, so it’s a different feeling. One swing thought I have with my driver is ‘left shoulder to chin’. It’s just a very simple thought and it really helps me with my path.
Does it guide your swing?
Yes. The driver is a lot longer than your irons, so sometimes you have a tendency to make your swing a little too long. When I have that feeling of shoulder to chin, I’m more consistent with how long my swing is.
