Great athletes don’t choose when they deliver their most remarkable feats. They just deliver them.
That’s what Nelly Korda has been doing the past couple months.
The 25-year-old No. 1 ranked women’s golfer in the world has been delivering on a record-setting level, winning her last five tournaments — a feat only Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam have accomplished.
Korda is on a heater reminiscent to what Tiger Woods was on in his prime when he won five consecutive starts in 2007-08, six in a row in 1999-2000 and seven straight in 2006-07.
Her recent accomplishments have even superseded what men’s world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has been doing, winning four of his past five tournaments, including a second Masters title.
We are fortunate to have Korda’s greatness in our midst on the New York sports landscape for the next two weeks — with this week’s Cognizant Founders Cup at Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, N.J., and the Mizuho Americas Open being played next week at Liberty National in Jersey City.
The unfortunate element to this is that the timing is bad for Korda’s visit here because of the current bender that New York sports is on. With the Knicks and Rangers playoff runs and the Yankees and Mets in the throes of their respective seasons, there’s not a lot of oxygen left for women’s golf in our area.
The shame is that sports fans should be lining up at Upper Montclair this week and Liberty next week to witness one of the finest runs not just a women’s golfer has ever been on, but any golfer.
Korda’s greatness warrants more attention than it’s getting, and you wonder why she hasn’t been the recipient of the kind of adulation that Caitlin Clark has received for her remarkable achievements.
With all due respect to what Clark did in her incredible NCAA Tournament run and drawing attention to her sport, Korda has been doing things that the best to ever to play the game never did.
Had she not been photographed on the red carpet at the Met Gala on Monday, few might have even known Korda was in town.
If she wins the Founders Cup this week, maybe that changes.
Korda won her second major title and fifth consecutive victory in the Chevron Championship last month, equaling the record set by Lopez in 1978 and Sorenstam in 2004-05.
A win this week would separate Korda from the tie with those two women, who happened to be two of the all-time greats in the sport.
“I’m just out here doing what I love and hopefully that’s what grows the game naturally,” Korda said Wednesday. “I’m not trying to push anything. I hope that people see me for who I am and I love this game and doing it naturally. At the end of the day, I think if you perform well in your sport that’s what grabs people’s attention. I hope that I just do it naturally and that catches people’s attention.”
After Korda coasted to the third of her five-consecutive victories at the Ford Championship last month, her swing coach, Jamie Mulligan, told reporters: “That’s what it looked like when [Woods] won. She’s an athlete making a hard game look easy.”
Korda’s prowess has drawn the attention of some of the best players in the men’s game, not the least of whom is Scheffler.
“One of the people here asked me, ‘Is this turning into a competition between you and Nelly?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, man, I think if it’s a competition, she’s got me pretty beat right now,’ ’’ Scheffler said after winning the RBC Heritage last month the week after capturing the Masters.
Korda insisted she hasn’t been fixated on winning her sixth in a row to set the record.
“If I’m being honest, I have not thought about it at all because I’ve had so much going on these two weeks,’’ she said, referring to the Met Gala.
Both Pat Bradley and Beth Daniel, two of the LPGA greats in town this week for the Founders Cup, spoke Wednesday about the pressure on Korda.
“I watched when she won the fifth in a row and she said that was the most nervous she’s been down the stretch, [so] I can only imagine how nerve-wracking this week is going to be,’’ Daniel said.
Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
“Nelly is not coming in here when you least expect it,’’ Bradley said. “It is going to be a challenge for Nelly. All eyes are going to be on Nelly.’’
More eyes should be on Korda. Her accomplishments warrant more attention than she’s getting.
