Keeping It in the Family

Nelly Korda enjoyed a stunning 2021, but her rise comes as no surprise when you consider the sporting genes she has

- By Garrett Johnston. Photographs by Getty Images

Nelly Korda is coming off a 2021 season like no other. She won four times on the LPGA Tour, grabbed a Gold Medal at the Tokyo Olympics and captured her first Major at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. It was also a year when the 23-year-old reached number one in the world rankings for the very first time. It has been some rise…

But the younger Korda sibling hasn’t just arrived from nowhere to surge to the top of the women’s game; she spent the entirety of the four-month pandemic break at second in the rankings thanks to her fine play in the preceding months. But to have a season like she did last year was certainly remarkable, of that there’s no question.

The sporting genes run deep in the Korda family. Along with sister Jessica – herself a multiple winner on the LPGA Tour and three-time Solheim Cup player – Nelly’s parents Petr and Regina are former tennis pros. Petr won the Australian Open in 1998, while her younger brother Sebastian is also a professional on the ATP Tour – he recently broke into the world’s top 50 for the first time.

Like all golfing prodigies, Nelly started her journey young. Very young, in fact. She was just two when she first swung a club, before taking lessons at six and competing in junior events three years later. When Jessica qualified for her first US Open in 2008 – aged only 15 – she would take Nelly into the clubhouse at Interlachen Country Club where, as a wide-eyed nine-year-old, she would first catch a glimpse of her favourite player, Annika Sorenstam. Could she ever have imagined she would eventually become the world’s best player, with a Major Championship and Olympic Gold Medal to her name?