AIG Girls’s Open: Nelly Korda defends type forward of St Andrews as Lydia Ko performs down stress to finish her main drought | Golf Information

Nelly Korda says she feels no further stress heading into the AIG Girls’s Open, regardless of having didn’t construct on her extraordinary profitable streak at first of the LPGA Tour season.

Korda gained the opening main of the 12 months on the Chevron Championship as a part of a run of 5 consecutive LPGA Tour victories, equalling the file beforehand set by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam, then claimed the Mizuho Americas Open in Might for a sixth win in seven begins.

A dramatic change in fortunes noticed her miss her subsequent three cuts, together with the US Girls’s Open and KPMG Girls’s PGA Championship, with Korda then failing to discover a top-20 end at both the Evian Championship or the Paris Olympics.

Korda stays prime of the world rankings and among the many favourites to say a 3rd main victory, with the 28-year-old not involved about her dip in type over the previous three months.

“I think that’s just life in general or sports,” Korda mentioned in her pre-tournament press convention. “You are by no means simply going to shoot straight up, you are going to go up and you are going to go down.

“I believe the perfect a part of the downs is that you just be taught a lot about your self – it is all the time a studying alternative and I take pleasure in that. I all the time strive to think about every part in a constructive mindset.

“Now in comparison with the beginning of the 12 months, clearly I’ve had some finishes that weren’t the perfect however, on the finish of the day, I am nonetheless studying and I am nonetheless getting higher from it.

“It [winning at St Andrews] would be obviously a dream come true to have my name etched into the history, but at the end of the day, I’m just going to focus that one shot at a time and not think of Sunday.”

Korda performs the primary two rounds alongside England’s Charley Hull and world No 2 Lilia Vu, who can change into the primary participant since Yani Tseng in 2011 to win back-to-back AIG Girls’s Open titles.

“I’m not putting too much pressure on myself to defend a title,” Vu mentioned. “It’s a new week at a new golf course. I’m just going to show up to the tournament the same way I do every single time and try to beat the course every day if it allows with the weather.

“I am simply going to strive my greatest. Each single time that individuals assume ‘oh, I am defending one thing’, it appears like you may have one thing to lose. While you begin recent firstly of the event, you have not gained the event but. So I believe I’ll follow that type of mindset.”

Ko: An excessive amount of concentrate on main wins?

Former world No 1 Lydia Ko secured her spot within the LPGA Corridor of Fame after profitable gold on the Paris Olympics earlier this month, though has failed so as to add to her two main victories since her Chevron Championship success – when she was nonetheless a teen – in 2016.

“Our goal is to try and peak at the majors, but it’s easier said than done,” Ko mentioned forward of the AIG Girls’s Open. “You could do everything correct, and it just could be that time of the month or you could just be tired or get the wrong side of the draw. There’s just so many variables that you can’t control.

“I believe it is quite a bit tougher and I do know that each time Rory [McIlroy] tees it up, everybody asks him. Clearly he performed superb on the US Open however individuals all the time simply speak about his end. I imply, the man performed superior, you already know.

“I think sometimes we get carried away about who won, like how many years it’s been. Like it’s a drought, this, that, but I think it’s difficult. As players, we’re trying to work to be at the highest level at that time, but sometimes it just doesn’t go that way.

“It doesn’t matter what, I am so proud to be a significant champion and I do know that not all golfers have the chance to even say that. I do need to hold placing myself in competition, and I believe in case you try this, I’ll change into extra comfy being in that type of place.”

Who will win the AIG Girls’s Open? Watch all 4 rounds reside this week on Sky Sports activities! Dwell protection of the opening spherical begins Thursday at noon on Sky Sports activities Golf. Stream the ladies’s majors and extra sport with NOW.