Nelly Korda is the daughter of former Czech tennis players - 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda and Olympian Regina Rajchrtova - and has gone on to top the world rankings in women's golf. Nelly followed elder sister Jessica into professional golf while brother Sebastian is making waves on the tennis circuit.
In 2016, Nelly Korda was the world's top-ranked junior before turning pro. She quickly made her mark by winning the Sioux Falls GreatLIFE Challenge on the LPGA Futures Tour. By finishing ninth on the money list, she secured a LPGA Tour card for 2017.
It was not until 2018 that she claimed her first LPGA Tour title, at the LPGA Taiwan Championships. In early 2019, she won the Australian Open to break into the top 10 of the world rankings. Two more wins followed that year as she took the French Open on the Ladies European Tour (LET) before retaining her LPGA Taiwan title.
Nelly Korda: Olympic triumph and LPGA domination
The Florida native dazzled in 2021. In February, she won the Gainbridge LPGA by three strokes from former world number one Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson. Four months later, she claimed the Meijer LPGA Classic and backed that up the following week with her first major triumph at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship in Atlanta to become world number one.
Korda then took gold at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, winning by one stroke from Japan's Inami Mone. She completed a superb year by beating Ko, Thompson and Kim Sei-young in a playoff to win the Pelican Championship.
Having yielded her number one ranking at the start of 2022, Korda required surgery on a blood clot in her arm. After six weeks out, she returned to take a share of eighth place at the US Women's Open behind Australia's Minjee Lee. After winning the LET's Aramco Team Series event in Sotogrande, Spain, she finally gained her first LPGA Tour win of the year as she retained her Pelican title in November.
The American regained the number one ranking when she finished third in the first major of 2023, the Chevron Championship, but a back injury forced her to spend more time on the sidelines. Her only triumph that year came in July's Aramco Team Series London.
The 25-year-old made history in 2024 by winning five LPGA Tour titles in succession. She clinched her ninth LPGA Tour title at January's LPGA Drive On Championship in her hometown of Bradenton, beating Ko on the second extra hole after finishing eagle-birdie to force a playoff.
Then in consecutive weeks she won the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, returning to the top of the world rankings in the process, the Ford Championship and the T-Mobile Match Play. That made her the first player since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 to win four consecutive events in as many starts.
Two weeks later, she won the Chevron Championship to secure her second major title and join Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) and Nancy Lopez (1978) as the only players to win on five consecutive starts.