Nelly Korda has completed her dream of winning the U.S. Women’s Open in 2026 at the century-old Riviera. It is her second straight golf major title after she won the Chevron Championship last month.
Compared to her performance in 2025, this year has been incredible for Korda. She has now won four major titles and three second-place finishes to start the season.
According to Nelly, she has dreamt of this moment since she was a young girl. But she had never imagined that she would finally get her hands on the Silver Cup.
She edged Charley Hull and Gaby Lopez by a single stroke for her fourth major Championship, carding an 8-under par total of 276. The first seven were separated by just two shots going into the final.
Here is what she said during her press conference, “That 14-year-old girl who stepped on the range at Sebonack in 2013, her dream has just come true, sitting next to this trophy right now. It’s really hard to put into words.”
“It doesn’t matter if you have your B or C game. You have to be there mentally. And I have a great support system off the golf course, on the golf course, and I literally would not be standing here without millions of pep talks I just got on the golf course from (Jason McDede, her caddie).”
Before this win, her closest call to winning a title came last year when she was tied for second with Rio Takeda at Erin Hills after losing to Maja Stark by two strokes. So, this near-miss experience last year made her hungrier.
Nelly said, “I always felt like I emphasized the Women’s Open so much.”
“That’s where my dream started of playing on the LPGA. Every year, I never played well. I was always over par, or I made a mess of a hole at Lancaster, and I felt like that dream was almost slipping away. But it was still keeping me very much so motivated.”
“Being in the chase at Erin Hills, I turned the corner of, okay, I can be in the hunt. I can do this. I can play, and I can contend at a U.S. Women’s Open. I can put the dream aside and focus on what’s right in front of me. I really tried to focus on that today. When I entered the back nine, all Jay and I were talking about was one shot at a time.”
“Not getting too ahead of myself. Not looking at the leaderboard, seeing what other people were doing. It was just a shot at a time.”
Because of that attitude, she now has four major titles to her name. It made her the first athlete of the 2020 era to capture four wins in the biggest events of the game.
