What links Olympic golf champion Nelly Korda to Taylor Swift?
After five wins in six tournaments this year, Nelly Korda is the biggest draw in women’s golf.
Taylor Swift is the biggest star in contemporary music. So what links the pair?
World number one Korda was among the LPGA Tour stars who went to see Swift on her Eras tour in March with the dates coinciding with the Women’s World Championship in Singapore.
That prompted LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan to welcome the singer to LPGA tournaments, saying, “Taylor, come join us. Our doors are wide open for you.” She is yet to take up the invitation but having helped the Super Bowl attract record viewings this year - her partner Travis Kelce played for the victorious Kansas City Chiefs - her support would surely give an additional boost to the sport.
Swift regularly twirls a golf club on stage to accompany her 2014 hit Blank Space.
In May, just over a week after her record-equalling fifth consecutive LPGA Tour win at the Chevron Championship, Korda became the second professional golfer - Tiger Woods was the first - to attend the Met Gala.
A guest of LA 2028 Organising Committee President Casey Wasserman, the 26-year-old dazzled in an Oscar de la Renta dress. At 1.78m, she was shocked at how tall she was compared to most of the stars in attendance and was thrilled at rubbing shoulders with the likes of singer Ed Sheeran.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medallist quipped, "It was my first time walking the red carpet, and I think it’s just going to be downhill from here."
Swift was a notable absentee from this year’s Met Gala due to her preparing to start the European leg of her Eras tour just days later.
Taylor Swift hangs out with a golfing Korda
There is an even stronger link between Swift and Korda’s elder sister Jessica who has six wins on the LPGA Tour.
With Nelly not long a teenager, Jessica secured her first title in a six-way playoff at the 2012 Women’s Australian Open. She told reporters, "Taylor Swift’s Enchanted was by far the saving moment for me."
Upon hearing the call-out, Swift’s teams contacted Jessica’s father - former Australian Open tennis champion Petr Korda, who told Golf Digest Woman, “They wanted to invite Jessi to a concert in Australia, but I told them she was already back in the States. Then they said she wanted to send her flowers, so I said it was better to wait until her birthday."
Sure enough, a fortnight after, Jessica received a bouquet of flowers on her birthday from the pop megastar. Three years later, she asked Swift for tickets to a concert in the Japanese capital Tokyo. The musician managed to arrange them with the pair going on to meet backstage.
London meeting for Swift and Korda?
Golf’s leading lady and the pop princess are both incredibly busy in the coming weeks with the latter continuing her mega world tour.
But there could be a ‘Blank Space’ in Korda’s schedule between the Women’s Scottish Open - at Dundonald Links in Ayrshire - from 15-18 August, and the Women’s British Open, which starts at St Andrews on the 22nd.
Swift is playing five nights at Wembley Stadium, 15-17 and 19-20 August, so perhaps Korda and her LPGA colleagues will fly down to London to see the superstar perform.