After three years, the Korda sisters are officially back on tour together.
Nelly, 27, and Jessica, 33, are both set to play the Ford Championship beginning on Thursday in Chandler, Arizona, and it marks the first time in three years that they’ll compete in the same LPGA event. The last time the sister duo teed off alongside each other was the 2023 Founders Cup and Jessica said it’s definitely nice to have her sister out to ease into the tournament week.
“I mean, don’t have to think about who you’re going to play a practice round with or you’re going to sit at lunch with,” Jessica said. “There’s a lot of new faces, especially after not being out here for three years. So, I think there is maybe like a handful of players that I really know from when I was playing actively.”
Jessica has taken most of the last three years off to deal with a nagging back injury and to care for her first child, Greyson, who was born in 2024. She said she has no idea what to expect for her first tournament back but is ready for the return.
“I’m just really happy to be here,” she said. “I didn’t think I would tee it up again after I was withdrawing out of a couple events in 2023, so being here feeling good, we’ll see where it takes us.”
While she’s still dealing with pain, she thinks the time off and knowing how to better manage it will help her compete on the course. She’s played in only one tournament since her son was born, last year’s Grant Thornton Invitational, an unofficial team event, and said it was rough as a new mother.
“Greyson decided to not sleep, so I didn’t sleep from midnight to 5:00 a.m., it adds another variable to golf, to preparation,” Jessica said. “Hopefully he sleeps this week.”
Luckily, it’s a full-blown family affair for the Kordas this week and their mother is staying with them at the tournament to help out with Greyson. Jessica said it’ll be quite the change to have the opportunity to play uninterrupted golf for hopefully four days in a row. “When I play at home the rounds are so fast; I’m on a golf cart; sometimes I don’t finish 18 holes because I don’t have time for it. I got to go home and relieve the babysitter,” Jessica said.
Nelly, however, has spent the last three years going full throttle on the LPGA Tour and finished 2024 as the No. 1 player in the world. She won the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions to begin this season and after sitting out the Asia swing, she was runner-up last week at the Fortinet Founders Cup.
Despite her success, she said she’s learned a lot from her older sister, especially when she first turned pro, and that it was a huge adjustment for her not having Jessica on the tour.
“Jess taught me what life on tour was kind of like,” Nelly said. “Not many people really talk about it, but sometimes it is like a super isolating, lonely life out here... So, knowing what the tour life was like, traveling and getting the insight from her from — she turned pro in 2011— I feel like, for me, really helped me my rookie year on of having a built-in best buddy.”
Younger-sister Nelly has always been known for her quiet demeanor and said she loves watching Jessica’s energy on the course. “I don’t really show too much up and down during my rounds and she really throws out really big fist pumps. That’s something I always admired about her,” Nelly said.
In addition to her on-course emotion, Nelly also said she has been continuously impressed throughout her career by her sister’s ability to make clutch putts. “Playing alongside her in Solheim Cups. There were so many times I was like, ‘Oh, my God, please make this, I really don’t want to putt,’ and she did,” Nelly said.
As for Jessica, she said she admires nearly the entirety of her sister’s golf game. “Her feel, touch around the greens, playing in tough conditions, how she just burrows down. I think if you see her name up on the leaderboard during crappy weather you’re like, ‘oh, crap,’” Jessica said. “She would rather rip your throat out than lose.”
Nelly won the Ford Championship in 2024 and will have her work cut out for her this year going up against world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul and defending champ Hyo Joo Kim, who edged the younger Korda last week at the Founders.