Nelly Korda suffers late collapse during round 2 of golf at the Paris Olympics
Nelly Korda was upbeat with a 60 in round two of the Women's Olympic golf in Paris on Thursday until the 16th hole. Korda is the World's No. 1 golfer at the moment and a majority of the way through her second round she was playing like one.
A 4-under 32 had Nelly Korda off to a nice start in Round 2 on Thursday and it continued into the back nine. Holes 11 and 15 saw Korda continuing to surge up the leaderboard. Then hole 16 happened. As she stood on the tee box trying to decide between using a wedge or a 9-iron, she never looked comfortable. Would she play the safe club choice of a wedge? Or would Nelly Korda risk it and use a 9-iron?
Nelly Korda's early surge derailed in the second round as she tries to defend her gold medal at the Paris Olympics
Korda went with the latter. Her 9-iron in theory should have been enough for the 150-yard par 3. Her tee shot landed a foot short of the green in the water. She said nothing was wrong with the club she chose, but stated, "the ball came off the heal".
John Wood, anaylst for Golf Channel said, "That was a shocker".
"So important when you make those last-minute club changes to really commit youself to it. Get that other one completely out of your head and convince yourself that this is the right one" Wood said.
It continued to roll downhill as Korda tried to salvage the hole. Eventually, she sunk a 7ft to finish with a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3, but the damage had been done. Moving onto the par-4 17th, Korda three-putted for a bogey 5. She had dropped 5 strokes in two holes.
"Just a series of unfortunate events happened in a row" Korda said.
Korda was able to find a red number on the 18th sinking her 7th birdie of Round 2. From being on pace to shoot the highly sought-after 60 in the Paris Olympics to finishing with a second-round score of 70, it all happened in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately, Korda's quadruple-bogey was a familiar feeling. Back in May during the first round of the U.S. Open, she carded a septuple-bogey 10 on the par-3 12th at Lancaster Country Club.
The World No. 1 is currently tied at T7 (-4) and 5 shots off the lead. You can't count Korda out just yet from medaling. Last week, men's World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler ignited in the final round, shooting a 9-under 62 to storm back and win the gold medal.
"It's all about, you know, if i can get my whole game together for the next two days, and if I would have done this on the last day or let's say the third day, then I would have been extremely heartbroken" Korda said.