After an incredible spring that saw her win five consecutive tournaments and six overall, the LPGA has awarded World No. 1 Nelly Korda with its Rolex Player of the Year award for 2024.
It’s the first time Korda has earned this honor.
“Winning the Rolex Player of the Year means so much to me,” Korda said.
“This season has had its highs and challenges, and I’m just really grateful for the people around me who have helped me get here. It’s been a team effort, and I’m proud to share this moment with them.”
Korda’s season began with a T-16 at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in her native Florida. She then went on to win her next five starts, including a victory at The Chevron Championship, the first major of the season. A tie for seventh at the Cognizant Founders Cup in early May ended her winning streak at five. But she got back to her winning ways the following week at Liberty National. She fended off Australian Hannah Green by a stroke, thus clinching win number six.
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Korda has not won since then, having endured some challenging stretches. She struggled at the U.S. Women’s Open at the end of May and missed the cut—primarily thanks to her eye-opening 10 on the par-3 12th hole at Lancaster Country Club. Another missed cut followed at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Sahalee in June. But she made the weekend at the Amundi Evian Championship in July.
Then, with her game back in form in August, Korda held the lead on the back nine at St. Andrews in the AIG Women’s Open. But a costly double-bogey on the par-5 14th sealed her fate. She finished in a tie for second with Lilia Vu—who took home Player of the Year honors last year—as the two Americans finished two strokes back of champion Lydia Ko.
Speaking of Vu, Korda’s Player of the Year honors marks the first time Americans have won this award in back-to-back years since Betsy King and Beth Daniel did so in 1993 and 1994. Korda is the 27th different recipient of this award, which dates back to 1966.
Of course, Korda and Vu helped the U.S. win their first Solheim Cup since 2017 in September. In her fourth appearance on Team USA, Korda won three points for the Americans and Captain Stacy Lewis this year. It also marked the first instance Korda played on a winning Solheim Cup team.
But since Korda had so many trials and tribulations throughout her summer, Lewis felt that many golf fans had “forgotten” what she accomplished earlier this season.
“It’s being forgotten about, which is crazy to me,” Lewis said when asked about Korda’s season in an exclusive interview with SB Nation.
“To win six events in a row, and to do it on very different golf courses, very different weather. You can see her growth at this year’s Solheim Cup compared to last year. She was much more prepared to be the leader, the first person going out in that first match. With her start to this year, she’s grown leaps and bounds just from those experiences, and you can tell she’s learned along the way. And, you know, there’s a lot of talk about the Player of the Year and who should win it. But whoever has the most wins should be Player of the Year.”
Luckily for Korda, Lewis, who made these comments a few weeks after the Solheim Cup, was correct in her assumption. Korda is the 2024 Player of the Year, and rightfully so.
Whenever golf fans think back to this past LPGA season, they will remember Korda’s wins and her leadership at the Solheim Cup, not the missed cuts at Lancaster and Sahalee. She was the best player—and the biggest story—in women’s golf all season, and frankly, nobody else deserved to take home this award as much as she did.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
