“I couldn’t lift my leg”: Nelly Korda’s sister details painful injury that sent her LPGA career into a hiatus
Nelly Korda is having a phenomenal season on the LPGA Tour this year. On the other hand, Nelly's elder sister Jessica Korda has not made a single appearance on the professional golf circuit since the Cognizant Founders Cup, from which she withdrew after Round 1 in May 2023.
Jessica's absence from the professional golf scene was due to her pregnancy, and also due to a back injury that she suffered. Recently, during an appearance on The Smylie Show, host Smylie Kaufman enquired in detail about Jesicca's issues with her back.
The elder sister of Nelly Korda said:
"Yeah, L4, L5, S1. So I just couldn't even lift my legs up at the end and brushing my teeth, just normal stuff, like literally not sleeping because you can't even change positions. And I tried everything too. And then I was like, okay, we're done. We can't do this. This is not a good life to live. But yeah, I mean, the pregnancy, I feel like things happen in life exactly how they're supposed to." [8:50 onwards]
She further added:
"And I think getting pregnant with Grayson when I did was a blessing in many ways, especially for my back. And now I feel like lifting a kid, you learn proper techniques because you realize very quickly that 20 pounds every two minutes is like not going to be good if you don't have the correct squatting position and like all this other stuff."
Further, Jessica Korda mentioned she gets to hit a couple of balls here and there, and it feels okay to her. It will be interesting to see when she makes a return to the professional golf circuit.
Jessica Korda also spoke about how competitive Nelly Korda can be
Jessica Korda and Nelly Korda have competed with each other on various occasions. To be precise, the two sisters have teamed up on three times to represent the United States. Their most memorable outing in the three times they played together came at the 2019 Solheim Cup where they won a match as a duo.
Jessica spoke about how competitive her sister can get. During her appearance on The Smylie Show, she recalled a story from Nelly's days as a junior golfer which proves how competitive she is as a golfer.
"This one girl showed up in like the same outfit or same shoes or something [as Nelly Korda] and it upset Nelly so bad that she went out and was just like 'I'm going to beat you' like 'you're going down'. [It was] not match play but Nelly took it as like a match play thing and won the tournament just because she had that like motivation." [46:44 - 47:08]
Further, she shared another story involving herself and her sister.
"She's brutal...like she'll definitely be the one that's like 'no, I want to take her down', like...she had a putt to knock me out of top 10 and she was like 'yeah, I saw the leaderboard, if I make this you're out' and she did it and I was like 'great, you're paying for the hotel room this week.'" [53:20 - 53:33]
As mentioned above, while Jessica Korda and Nelly Korda have succesfully teamed up before, their last outing together was not a memorable one for them. At the 2021 Solheim Cup, the Korda sisters teamed up once again but were on the losing end.