If you are among the many golfers who struggle with an awkward swing, take heart. Nelly Korda had the same problem as a teenager, before finding a new direction and blazing a trail to become the women’s World No. 1 golfer.

In 2013, when Korda was 14 years old, her game was in pieces. “Honestly, if you had seen my golf swing . . . It was the most atrocious swing I have seen in my entire life,” Korda says with striking self-deprecation. “It was so steep, so loopy, and there was such a disconnect between my arms and body.”

Her swing troubles took a toll on the teenager. “I was really struggling, and I didn’t know if I wanted to continue playing golf,” she says. “I was playing with really heavy clubs, and I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and it was during a growth spurt, and it led to a bad back at a really young age.”

Korda’s father, Petr, is one of the greatest tennis players to have emerged from the Czech Republic—or Czechoslovakia, as it was known then—and he won the 1998 Australian Open. Her mother, Regina Rajchrtová, also played on the pro tennis tour. The couple brought up their three children in Bradenton, Florida, not far from the prestigious IMG Academy, which promises pro-level coaching and education to aspiring athletes.

All three Korda kids have grown up to become tour pros—two in golf, one in tennis. But back in 2013, Petr saw that his gifted middle child was at a crossroads. She needed either a reset with her golf or a different path altogether. So he consulted IMG’s then director of golf, David Whelan, a former tour pro from England who had built a reputation as Paula Creamer’s long-term coach.

“Nelly’s dad came into my office and said she was terrible out of bunkers,” starts Whelan, 64, who now bases his coaching at Bradenton’s Lakewood National Golf Club. “I took her out, and we worked in a bunker, and we have pretty much been together ever since.

“Nelly’s swing was not as bad as she says it was, but it wasn’t good enough to take her where she wanted to go. She didn’t really have a short game, so the main thing I did for her early on was to sort that out. Today, she is one of the best chippers on the LPGA Tour.”

Korda is also one of the longest and most consistent drivers on the LPGA Tour, and among the leaders in finding greens in regulation. When her putter warms up, she’s difficult to beat. “If Nelly putts well, she’ll finish in the top three at any event,” claims Whelan, who has also worked with three-time World No. 1 Lydia Ko.

“David completely rebuilt my swing,” says Korda, who turned professional at the age of 18, four years after that first meeting. “No matter what, David is always going to be super involved in my golf. He actually rejuvenated my love for the game, and I am where I am because of him.”

Where Korda is at the time of writing is No. 2 in the world, behind Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul. Korda enjoyed the season of her career so far in 2024, winning seven times, including a stretch of five straight wins, which delivered her to the No. 1 ranking. Her consistency remained in 2025—19 cuts made from 19 starts—but her winning touch evaporated. Golf is a fickle game. Meanwhile, Thitikul was dominant last season, winning three times to usurp Korda as both World No. 1 and as Rolex Player of the Year on the LPGA Tour.

Though not as dramatically as when she was 14, Korda needed another fresh start in 2026. She earned it emphatically at the LPGA Tour opener at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, at a brutally wintry Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando, from January 29 to February 1. The tournament was reduced to 54 holes, with the greens frozen solid. Korda’s outstanding third round of 64, eight under par, was the low round of the tournament and helped earn the Gulf Coast golfer a three-shot victory.

“[That] was probably one of my best rounds I’ve ever played in my career,” said Korda in her press conference after clinching the 16th LPGA Tour victory of her career. “I was so focused on being present. I told myself to do that last year, too, but maybe the outside noise did make its way in a little bit more than I wanted it to. I am very grateful to go through those lows, because they make me appreciate the highs so much.”

Generation Game

The athletic pedigree of the Korda family is rare. A pair of tennis pro parents had three offspring: Jessica, a six-time winner on the LPGA Tour, who is now 32 years old and returning to the tour after becoming a mother; Nelly, who is five years younger than her sister; and tennis pro Sebastian, 25, a three-time winner on the ATP Tour.

“Our parents wanted us to find what we were passionate about,” says Korda, who started swinging a golf club at the age of two, while seven-year-old Jessica was having golf lessons. “We were never pushed into anything, which was nice. The main thing our parents really wanted was for us to be outside. Even though they both played tennis, we were never pushed into that. My brother was a really good hockey player, and he did not start playing tennis until he was 13.

“We skied in the winters, and I did gymnastics and figure skating, and I played some soccer at school. We also did tae kwon do growing up, so we were always doing something. At the end of the day, we did find what we are passionate about, which was a great way to grow up.”

When the sports did start to get serious for the teenage Kordas, they had homespun guidance to lean on.

“Our parents always reiterated, ‘It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,’ ” Korda says. “Another [guiding principle] was, ‘Everyone has their own path.’ It is really easy to compare yourself to what others do and to what others have achieved, particularly in sports, but we all need to stay the course and find our own path. Everyone peaks at different times, and everyone has a different career.”

Sports could very well be on the path for future generations of the family. Jessica’s husband, Johnny DelPrete, is a former tour golfer; Nelly’s fiancé, Casey Gunderson, played college football at Bryant University in Rhode Island; and Sebastian is also engaged, to Ivana Nedved, a childhood friend of Nelly’s whose father, Pavel Nedved, is an all-time great of Czech soccer. The union between the houses of Korda and Nedved is going to create an extraordinary Czech American dynasty.

“The Nedveds spent their summers in Florida, while they lived in Italy for the rest of the year,” shares Korda. “Ivana and I were best friends growing up, and we were pretty inseparable during summers. The Nedved family is great, and Ivana understands the life of an athlete. I am very happy for Sebastian and Ivana. Actually, I have known they were destined to be together for a long time, from a pretty young age.”

With both Korda weddings being planned for 2027, Nelly is hoping to pop more champagne corks on the golf course in the meantime. She has skipped the LPGA Tour’s early-season Asian swing in a bid to be fresh for the U.S. West Coast swing, starting in mid-March.

“I foresee a good year ahead for Nelly,” says coach Whelan. “I really do.”

“I can’t control the bounces, and I can’t control what other people are doing, and I can’t control the weather,” says Korda, who has won major titles at the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the 2024 Chevron Championship. “I can just control my attitude and my work ethic and that fire inside of me. Every year of my career has had a completely different story, and that is what is amazing about sports. A new year is a new chapter in a book, and it is going to be exciting and infuriating—all of it. You feel every emotion possible, because we put so much into it, but it is also fun.”

The way Korda cracked her win drought in frozen Orlando suggests that the fire is stoked.