MIAMI
\nWorld number one Nelly Korda\u2019s season-long duel with second-ranked Ko Jin-young reaches its climax on Thursday as the two rivals tee off in the LPGA Tour Championship at Tiburon Golf Club in Florida.
\nKorda and Ko have dominated women\u2019s golf in 2021, regularly swapping the world\u2019s number one ranking while sharing eight tournament wins between them, with Korda also grabbing an Olympic gold medal into the bargain.
\nKorda is hoping to crown a dazzling season with a fifth LPGA Tour victory and arrives at this week\u2019s season-ending tournament in Naples fresh from a roller-coaster win in the Pelican Championship on Sunday.
\nThe 23-year-old US star has already gone back-to-back once this year, winning the Women\u2019s PGA Championship in June, one week after triumphing in the Meijer LPGA Classic in Belmont, Michigan.
\nKorda however has been careful to conserve energy leading into this week\u2019s event in the wake of her win in the Pelican, when she survived a triple bogey on the penultimate hole before prevailing in a playoff.
\n\u201cLast week was definitely a confidence boost, but I\u2019ve always said it\u2019s really hard to kind of win back to back because you\u2019re definitely a little mentally and physically drained from the week prior,\u201d Korda said.
\n\u201cSo making sure that I\u2019m well-rested and that I\u2019m 100% going into Thursday, and that I\u2019ll be 100% going into Sunday as well is going to be my main focus this week.\u201d Korda says her stellar year was driven by the disappointment of a missed cut at the rescheduled US Women\u2019s Open last December.
\n\u201cI think that was kind of my turning point where I just kind of changed my demeanor a little out there,\u201d Korda said.
\n\u201cI was really disappointed after that missed cut. I kind of turned it on after that.\u201d
\nKorda admits meanwhile that she is still adjusting to the trappings of success, revealing that reorganising her trophy cabinet is one of her off-season priorities.
\nThat will include finding a place for her Olympic gold medal, which has accompanied her around the world since her victory in Tokyo in August — tucked in a sock for safekeeping.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want to scratch it, so it went in a sock,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cEvery single time I went through (airport) security I got stopped and I was like, \u2018Okay, just be really careful with it when you pull it out. Don\u2019t scratch it!\u2019\u201d.
\nKo meanwhile heads into this week\u2019s event as the defending champion.
\nThe 26-year-old from Seoul has been on a hot streak in the past month, winning two titles in October to go alongside wins in Portland in September and Texas in July.
\nKo said the death of her grandmother in March had inspired her winning streak.
\n\u201cAfter she passed away I was thinking she really wants to see a lot of wins from heaven,\u201d Ko said.
\n\u201cSo I worked hard and I won four tournaments. So she\u2019s going to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MIAMI World number one Nelly Korda\u2019s season-long duel with second-ranked Ko Jin-young reaches its climax on Thursday as the two rivals tee off in the LPGA Tour Championship at Tiburon Golf Club in Florida. Korda and Ko have dominated women\u2019s golf in 2021, regularly swapping the world\u2019s number one ranking while sharing eight tournament wins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[336,335,334],"class_list":{"0":"post-228224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports","7":"tag-golf","8":"tag-golf-club","9":"tag-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n