Nelly Korda’s dominance of the women’s game since the turn of the year has been almost unprecedented.
After Lydia Ko moved within one point of an entry into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame with a victory at the season opener the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Korda has won six of the 11 LPGA Tour events since – and she’s only competed in seven of them.
Korda’s second victory of the year, at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, took her to the top of the world rankings for the sixth time and, not surprisingly, she has cemented that position for the foreseeable future with her stunning form.
The American’s latest victory came at the weekend with the Mizuho America’s Open, where she amassed another 62 world ranking points to take her to 524.85, with the player immediately beneath her in the rankings, Lilia Vu, well behind on just over half at 284.36. That gives Korda an average of 13.12 points from 40 events based on calculations on a rolling two-year basis, against Vu’s 6.32 from 45 – more than double.
As pointed out by the Golf Channel’s LPGA Tour play-by-play host Grant Boone, there is an even more remarkable stat to demonstrate just how much dominance Korda has over everyone else at the moment.
The average points gap between Vu and Korda is now larger than the chasm separating Vu from the lowest of the 1,620 ranked players, Trish Johnson.
New Rolex Rankings. With her 6th win of 2024, Nelly Korda now has twice as many points as Lilia Vu in 2nd. Which means — ready for this? — the gap between her and Vu is greater than the gap between Vu…and the last of the 1620 ranked players. pic.twitter.com/I6jiyCAjMrMay 21, 2024
So, what would Vu (or anyone else) need to do to overturn Korda’s lead? In short, a lot. Even winning a Major wouldn’t see Vu make too much of a dent in that yawning gap.
The big five tournaments each offer 100 points for a win. That means that, even in a best-case scenario for Vu, where she wins the next Major, the US Women’s Open in two weeks, her average would increase to 8.35, still over four average points behind Korda, and that’s assuming the World No.1 misses the cut at the event.
So far, the longest spell Korda has spent at the top of the rankings came in a 17-week stint between June and October 2021. Her current run already stretches to nine, and the stats indicate it could be quite some time before Vu or anyone else catches her again.
