"She's brutal" - Jessica Korda makes her feelings clear on competing against Nelly Korda
Jessica Korda has had the opportunity to watch her younger sister, Nelly Korda's soaring trajectory in golf, from the very beginning to the present day. This makes Jessica a more than qualified voice in assessing what it's like to compete against Nelly, and her opinion is that it's "brutal."
The eldest of the Korda sisters appeared on The Smylie Show podcast, hosted by former PGA Tour player Smylie Kaufman. Among the topics discussed was how competitive Nelly Korda can be, and Jessica responded with several anecdotes.
One of the stories Jessica Korda shared took place when Nelly was just a junior golfer. Here's how she told it:
"This one girl showed up in like the same outfit or same shoes or something [than Nelly] 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]
The other anecdote Jessica Korda recalled was from when her sister Nelly Korda was already playing on the LPGA Tour and the sisters happened to play in the same tournament. Here is what she said:
"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]
Although Nelly and Jessica Korda have both been individually competitive in their careers, they have also enjoyed a fair bit of success while playing together.
Jessica and Nelly Korda's professional careers so far
Jessica Korda is five years older than Nelly Korda, so she started playing in the LPGA Tour much earlier than the current World No. 1. Jessica began her professional career in 2010, and by the time Nelly began hers in 2016, her elder sister had already won four times at the top level.
However, the two have played many tournaments together. Jessica has won two events since Nelly joined the LPGA Tour. The younger Korda, meanwhile, won eight top-level tournaments (one major) between 2018 and 2023 (Jessica took maternity leave at the end of 2023).
In addition, Jessica and Nelly Korda have played together on the United States national team (professional) three times. The first was at the 2019 Solheim Cup, where they even played two matches as a duo, winning both.
In 2021, they made the team together for the Tokyo Olympics. Nelly won the gold medal, while Jessica finished 15th, eight shots behind her sister.
That same year, they both played in the Solheim Cup again. This time they teamed up to play only one match, losing to Mel Reid and Leona Maguire.