Nelly Korda chasing first win of '25, U.S. Women's Open breakthrough
May 28 - Nelly Korda ranks No. 1 in the world despite being without a win on the LPGA Tour halfway through the season but insists there's no added pressure for a breakthrough at the Women's U.S. Open at Erin Hills Golf Club in Wisconsin this week.
"I don't try and think about it," said Korda, who had seven wins in 16 events and claimed a major championship at the Chevron Championship in 2024. "Definitely when you're a higher-ranked player or you're more popular there is more pressure on you just from outside perspective when it comes to media, fans coming out to watch you play.
"If you want to feel it, you will feel it, but I think what's really important is just kind of sticking to your game plan and being really focused on what you're doing present time, and that's really helped me."
Korda was propelled to the Rolex Player of the Year honor by a streak of five wins in a row in 2024. She is chasing her first Women's U.S. Open title on the heels of her second top-5 finish this season at the Mizuho Americas Open.
As the world rankings underscore, Korda's results can hardly be classified as struggling. She's finished no worse than 22nd with three top-10 finishes in six events.
She said the season to date has been "interesting" but insisted she feels grateful and embraces the position this week at an event known for trying patience.
"It's big," said Korda, 26, who is staying 20 minutes from the course at a rented lake house with her parents. "Some weeks it's so much easier to be patient than others. It just depends on kind of the mindset and how you're feeling mentally. But it plays a really big role. Sometimes you can get ahead of yourself, and as I've said in the past, staying in the moment is really, really important for me."
Contrast the present to her surging 2024 momentum meter entering the U.S. Women's Open -- she missed the cut at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania with a season-worst opening round of 80 -- and Korda is comfortable with her real-time game.
At Erin Hills, there are challenges ahead on a course known for whipping wind and tight, challenging traps. And Korda hasn't posted many memorable rounds in the event of late. Two of her past three U.S. Women's Open rounds resulted in scores of 80. She wrapped the 2023 event at Pebble Beach by going 8-over on her final 18 and finished tied for 64th.
"I think the more you're put in under-pressure moments and the more you're in contention, you learn more about yourself and how to handle those situations," Korda said. "Every year something has tested me, and every year I learn a little bit more about myself and how to handle myself in some situations. So yeah, I think it's all about putting yourself into that position. ... At the end of the day, you're the one that put yourself there, and you have to be grateful that you are in that spot, and you kind of have to just enjoy even the pressure."
Korda entered the 2022 U.S. Open off a four-month hiatus and finished tied for eighth at 2-under for the tournament at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.
On Thursday Korda is paired with Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson (2:25 p.m. ET). She's looking dead ahead this week and focusing on what she can control in her 10th career U.S. Open start.
"I mean, it's the biggest test in golf," Korda said. "It definitely has tested me a lot. I love it. At the end of the day, this is why we do what we do, is to play these golf courses in these conditions, to test our games in every aspect."
--Field Level Media
--Field Level Media
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
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The Guardian
an hour ago
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The facility provides 45% of central Orange County's water and helps manage stormwater inflows and reduce reliance on imported water. View image in fullscreen The Orange County project generates about 130m million gallons of clean drinking water each day –enough for 1 million people. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty In general, once sewage has been treated, the water is returned to our rivers, but extreme droughts and climate change are pushing cities to consider using recycled sewage for drinking water. It is already done in Israel, Singapore and Kuwait, but Orange County has been a US pioneer in this area, hoping to reduce dependence on water piped from faraway rivers or pumped from shrinking aquifers under the ground. Orange County has a population of about 3 million and gets about 14 inches (35.5cm) of rain per year, some years far less, so recycling isn't just a way to reduce costs, it's a way to make sure everyone has what they need. 'Everything's going to have to be reclaimed and recycled,' says Bilodeau. When the liquid reaches the plant it has already been through some treatment and is clean enough to discharge into the oceans, but nowhere near clean enough to drink. The first step is to pump the water through bundles of hollow polypropylene fibres – which look like tiny plastic straws – to remove particulates as well as bacteria and other unwanted elements. Pipes then carry the filtered water to a building to undergo reverse osmosis, where it is pushed through membranes that squeeze out the salts, organic chemicals and any pharmaceutical leftovers. View image in fullscreen Pipes carry the filtered water to a building to undergo reverse osmosis, where it is pushed through membranes that squeeze out the salts, organic chemicals and any pharmaceutical leftovers. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Finally, the water is blasted with high-intensity ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide to disinfect anything that might remain. 'It's concentrated sunlight,' Bilodeau says, 'like what you would see in a tanning booth.' Except this would injure your eyes, because it's so strong. After walking around all three buildings, we reach a sink with running, clear water. I drink a cup of the stuff, expecting a whiff of what it used to be – but no, it's super clean, with almost a flat taste. That's because it no longer contains any salts or minerals – they have been blasted out by the cleaning process. On the cup is a motto, 'Tastes like water … because it is water', chosen because it is the number one comment, says Mehul Patel, the executive director of operations at the Orange County Water District, who oversees the facility. 'There was a misperception that it tastes different or tastes like something,' he says. 'We're trying to show people scientifically, water is just water.' 'We wanted full transparency,' adds Bilodeau, 'because we're talking about serving recycled wastewater to people.' Even though we are drinking the super-clean water out of the facility, the liquid will actually head back underground. Some of it will travel in pipes to the coastline of the Pacific Ocean where it will serve as a buffer to keep the salty water out of the coastal aquifer. Most of it will zoom 15 miles in pipelines to the city of Anaheim, where it will create lakes to percolate down into the aquifer and replenish the water that people drink in the county. 'It's the one that's consistent, because we can control it,' says Bilodeau. 'And that's a big reason why we invested in recycled water so heavily.' skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Down to Earth Free weekly newsletter The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The big drawback to this system is that making water – instead of sucking it from the ground – takes a huge amount of energy and manpower. The system consumes 17 megawatts of electricity and has a monthly electricity bill of $2.5m (£1.85m), while to run the place takes 26 operators. But the technology also offers some control over an increasingly climate-changed future: Bilodeau says the team estimates several years ahead in terms of what they think their water needs will be and what the water sources will be. 'That's one of the main reasons why we developed this,' he adds. 'Because we wanted to sort of diversify our supply portfolio.' View image in fullscreen A sample of purified water, left, flows next to wastewater following the microfiltration treatment process. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Some places are looking to the oceans for drinking water, but wastewater is more cost-effective as a source of water, Bilodeau says, because there are fewer salts in wastewater than sea water. That makes the energy costs of cleaning the water about half of what it would be to desalinate. The model is increasingly being used in other water-scarce regions in the US. Los Angeles County is building a water recycling project in the San Fernando Valley to produce 20m gallons a day. Instead of sending treated wastewater out to sea, it will be cleaned for drinking water, just like in Orange County. There are also projects starting in Utah, Texas and Colorado. California's State Water Resources Control Board approved regulations for direct potable reuse in October 2024, which allow purified water to go directly into drinking water systems instead of being mixed in with other water sources. The technology in the treatment process allows for the water to be even cleaner than most drinking water. The Orange County model has won awards, including a Guinness World Records title for the most wastewater recycled to drinking water in 24 hours on 16 February 2018. But the best praise is the public support for the water, says Bilodeau – and the economic argument behind it. 'It's now cheaper to make our own water than to buy imported water, or to clean sea water,' he says.
