MAKING FAMILY HISTORY
Four members of the Korda family have won Australian Open Championships across golf and tennis. The second youngest of the clan, Nelly, defends her Women’s Australian Open title this month and has her sights set on being the first Korda to win two.
The Korda family have a significant history in Australia, and more specifically at the Australian Open. The younger of LPGA Tour star sisters, Nelly, returns to South Australia to attempt to one up the other members of her family and outlines her plans in an exclusive interview with Rick Weber.
When Regina Korda watched from her seat at Melbourne Park as her husband, Petr, thrashed Marcelo Rios in three explosively dominant sets to win the 1998 Australian Open men’s singles title, she was three months pregnant.
The precocious child emerged on July 28, 1998, in Bradenton, Florida. She would be named Nelly. An estimated 358,049 babies were born around the world on that day, but none of them would feel the identical connection that Nelly felt in her soul. It was almost as if she knew she was destined to do something great on Australian soil one day, following in the footsteps of her father.
“I was there, in a way,” she says of Petr’s victory, which vaulted him to No. 2 in the world. “It’s pretty cool. I don’t know, I just love Australia … It kind of reminds me of home, too. I live in Florida, so it’s always so hot. The atmosphere and food there are amazing.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Nelly won the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open last year at The Grange Golf Club as a 20-year-old in just her third appearance in the tournament. Not just because of her ethereal link with Australia, but the entire family’s.
This had to happen. She had to complete the Korda Slam. Her sister, Jessica, and brother, Sebastian, had added to the Australian legacy – Jessica with a victory at the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne in 2012 and tennis prodigy Sebastian with a victory in the Australian Open boy’s singles in 2018 on the 20th anniversary of Petr’s breakthrough.
“All of them had Australian Open titles, so I was always the odd one out,” she says. “They were always talking about when they won and I was like, ‘OK, hopefully my day will come.’ ”
And when it did – after she overcame bogeys on the first three holes of the tournament, after
EVERY YEAR, I SET NEW GOALS … OBVIOUSLY, WITH EVERY GOLFER IN THE WORLD, THEIR MAIN GOAL IN THEIR CAREER IS TO BECOME THE NO. 1 GOLFER IN THE WORLD.”
– NELLY KORDA
she fended off the challenge of South Korea’s JinYoung Ko, who shot a final-round 64 with eight birdies – she celebrated with the Korda Kick. Petr had made this quirky scissors kick his trademark by doing it after winning certain matches back in the 1990s.
Nelly had seen videos of her father doing the scissors kick and also had seen Jessica do it after her 2012 victory. She had done it a few times as a kid, but never even practiced after that. So, give her credit for making it look easy for photographers while hoisting the Patricia Bridges Bowl.
“It took me a few times to get it right,” she says with a laugh. “It’s really hard, holding a trophy, smiling and doing the kick all at the same time.”
This is not really Nelly’s thing. While her friend and fellow LPGA Tour member Megan Khang calls her “super goofy,” she shies away from the kind of outward antics that her father revelled in, sometimes offending opponents.
Nelly is too locked in. She’s always applying tactical course management – using all the tools and resources at her disposal, analysing, thinking ahead, picking the shots that will give her the best scoring opportunities. She’s not going to attack a protected green by trying a high fade around trees if she hasn’t had success with that shot. “Playing smart,” she calls it.
She likens golf to archery. She believes if she focuses on the target and lets everything else fade away, she’s more likely to hit the green, chip to within a kick-in putt or drain long putts. It’s easy for her to quiet her mind, stay calm and discard the noise.
In that way, she is totally different from her father.
Petr didn’t just do scissors kicks. After he finished off Rios at Melbourne Park, he celebrated by cartwheeling all the way to the net. In his four-set semi-final victory over Karol Kucera, he did three cartwheels, two scissors kicks and one soaring, awkward-looking spread eagle.
He had a gift for entertainment, telling the rapt media after that match: “If I could get the telephone number of the Chicago Bulls, maybe I ask Mr. Jordan how to fly. Air Korda.”
Wrote Sports Illustrated’s Leigh Montville after Korda’s only Grand Slam title, “That was what made the scissors kicks and cartwheels wonderful. They were ungainly and beautiful, maybe 3.5 on a gymnast’s scale of 10 but as eloquent as a Shakespearean monologue. This was body language spoken straight from the heart.”
For Korda, it felt like he was living out a dream, unencumbered by soul-crushing restrictions. This was his way of expressing to the whole world his joy, how happy he was in the moment. This was his release from oppression, conformity and punishment.
Korda was reared in the authoritarian regime of the former Czechoslovakia when it was part of the Soviet bloc—one of the last in a tennis dynasty that included Ivan Lendl, Martina Navratilova and Hana Mandlikova. Czech bureaucrats enjoyed using the athletes to supposedly prove the superiority of their system, but the athletes suffered. Korda was held back as a junior tennis player and not allowed to go on tour until he was 20 because the government feared defections. In the mid-1980s, his food allowance was cut off for six months because he returned to Czechoslovakia 48 hours late from a junior tournament abroad.
Regina endured similar trials as she advanced through the system to compete for Czechoslovakia in singles at the 1988 Seoul
Olympics and then ascended to as high as No. 26 in the world as a pro, playing under her maiden name of Rajchrtová.
“They’ve talked about how they grew up in communism and it was hard for them to travel outside the country,” Nelly says. “They had to be the top player in their country to even be able to play in tournaments outside the Czech Republic. They’ve talked about their struggles.
“My mom was like, ‘I had to take train rides throughout the night to go to events. I had to sleep on suitcases because they didn’t have enough seats.’ We’ve heard all these stories. It’s humbling to realise how lucky we are. We’ve gotten some amazing opportunities, but we’ve always worked really hard for what we want. My parents have always made sure we have worked really hard, and then we get rewarded.”
Petr and Regina never pushed their kids to play tennis. Just the opposite—they pushed them to play a lot of different sports and discover which one most ignited their passion. Jessica was drawn to golf, and that influenced Nelly—almost six years younger—to emulate her. Nelly calls herself “the annoying little sister,” always wanting to do exactly what Jessica was doing. Jessica wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without Nelly. So, guess what? As Jessica took lessons, Nelly was right beside her, beating plastic balls.
When the family moved from the Czech Republic to Florida permanently in 2008, Nelly and Jessica improved exponentially.
Jessica became eligible for full membership on the LPGA Tour in 2011 at age 17 by finishing runner-up in the Qualifying Tournament, then notched her first victory as a pro in Australia in 2012.
Nelly qualified for the 2013 U.S. Open at age 14 – making the cut and finishing T64 – and joined the LPGA Tour in 2017. Her first victory came at the Swinging Skirts LPGA Taiwan Championship in 2018, making her and Jessica the third set of sisters to win LPGA events ( joining Moriya and Ariya Jutanugarn and Charlotta and Annika Sorenstam).
Nelly overtook Lexi Thompson as the topranked American in March 2019, then fell behind Thompson and Danielle Kang in October after Kang edged Jessica to win the Buick LPGA Shanghai in October and finished second the next week at the BMW Ladies Championship.
But Nelly vaulted to No. 3 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings with a repeat victory at the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA in November—her second win in four tournaments and her third of 2019. She also had two seconds, two thirds and six other top-10s in 20 events, with just one missed cut.
Her T3 finish at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship kept her in at No. 3 in the world ( behind Jin-Young Ko and Sung Hyun Park) and No. 1 in the US (ahead of No. 4 Kang and No. 10 Thompson). What’s next? “Every year, I set new goals,” she says. “I think it’s good to set new ones. I do keep those a secret. But obviously, with every golfer in the world, their main goal in their career is to become the No. 1 golfer in the world.”
It may be their goal, but many golfers don’t want to talk about it. That would create expectations, which might create pressure. But Korda can handle it. She says she actually “thrives” on it and it keeps her “going.”
Korda says her dad has never mentioned his brush with No. 1. He broke into the top-10 in 1991, reached No. 7 in 1992 and then stayed comfortably in the top-20. He went on a run in 1998 leading up to the Australian Open, and his victory put him on the precipice.
In April, he could have ascended to No. 1 by reaching the final at the Monte Carlo Open. After winning the first set of a quarterfinal match with Richard Krajicek, he was just one point from advancing to the semifinals. But he couldn’t conquer Krajicek, losing the tiebreaker and then the third set.
“He doesn’t really bring his career up too much,” she says. “I didn’t even know that, to be completely honest, so that’s a fact that I now know.”
Petr prefers to stay in the background, relinquishing the spotlight to Nelly and her siblings. He says this is “the time of their lives,” they are “the engines” and he can now slide
WE’VE GOTTEN SOME AMAZING OPPORTUNITIES ... MY PARENTS HAVE ALWAYS MADE SURE WE HAVE WORKED REALLY HARD, AND THEN WE GET REWARDED.
seamlessly into being the “supporting act.”
Nelly figures to be the family’s first No. 1. It seems inevitable, given her rise to No. 3 at such a young age and the complete game she has fashioned.
“Sky’s the limit for her,” says Julie Inkster, who captained the U.S. team at the 2019 Solheim Cup and marveled at the maturity Nelly showed in going 3-0-1. “She’s got all the shots.”
She may be the answer to the eternal question: Who is the next big star?
Golf Channel analyst Judy Rankin – herself a former prodigy who joined the LPGA Tour at age 17, won 26 tournaments and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame – looks at Korda and it’s almost like she’s gazing into the mirror 55 years ago.
“In little increments, Nelly Korda just keeps coming along,” Rankin says. “I mean, she’s already a star, but she’s just got all the qualities to be amongst the very top players in the world and the game.”
And so Nelly arrives at Royal Adelaide Golf Club in a prime position to defend her title and perhaps even set the stage for a year in which she ascends to No. 1. She would prefer that it be staged again at The Grange, because she has indelible memories of last year’s triumph and feels the course suits her game as a long-hitter, who could take advantage of the par-5s.
She won’t develop a game plan in her head until she actually gets to Royal Adelaide, because virtually the only thing she remembers about the course is that a railway line bisects the property.
She knows one thing for sure: She will feel at home. When she first played Royal Adelaide in 2017, the grounds crew came out on Sunday and followed her group to the finish. They became friends and have vociferously backed her at the Australian Open ever since. “It’s really cool,” she says. In her o hours, she will prowl the back alleys of downtown Adelaide, searching for the quaint coee shop she discovered last year. She doesn’t remember the name. She will know it when she sees it.