Oh Nelly! Korda makes 10 on one hole and scores 80 at US Women’s Open

LANCASTER, Pennsylvania. Nelly Korda hadn’t yet completed three holes at the U.S. Women’s Open when she crouched and hung her head in disbelief after her third straight shot — all of them from 70 feet away — landed in a creek.

She came away from the par-3 12th hole at Lancaster Country Club with a 10.

It didn’t get much better from there.

“Getting a 10 on a par 3 definitely won’t do any good at the U.S. Open,” Korda said as her nightmare start at women’s golf’s biggest championship ended with an 80.

“Just a bad day at the office.”

Korda came into the U.S. Women’s Open as a heavy favorite, with six wins in her last seven tournaments, including a major that tied the LPGA record for five straight wins.

That’s what made the 10 most flawed so shocking.

It didn’t help that two groups were on the tee at the 161-yard 12th hole — Korda had a wait of about 25 minutes — and she saw the problems unfold before pulling out a club. In the lead group, Gaby Lopez stayed close to the water. Ingrid Lindblad’s tee shot rolled into the water.

Korda curiously chose the 6-iron — most players didn’t as much as she hit the 7-iron — and made a hard lunge into a back bunker. And then the problem started.

Korda said there was a leaf under the golf ball, and the shot from the bunker came out a little hot and rolled – and rolled – past the front pin, off the false front and disappearing into the creek.

“I couldn’t really do anything about it,” she said. “Yeah, I just hit some really bad chips, over and over again.”

She played a low tone up the slope, but the sound hit the hill and rolled back into the water. She made another penalty drop, threw another low throw that was only a little better, still not enough to avoid rolling back into the water.

She got it right the third time, only to miss an 8-foot putt and make 10 sevenfold bogeys. Korda walked off the green, took off his visor and put his hand on his forehead for a few seconds, then walked to the 13th tee.

A video crew kept the camera fixed on the walking marker as “+1” was changed to “+8” next to his name.

She still had 15 holes to go on a course that didn’t offer many scoring chances. Only three morning wave players broke par at 1-under 69. Their goal?

“I really didn’t want to shoot 80,” Korda said. “And I kept making bogeys.”

It was her second straight round of 80 at the U.S. Women’s Open, separated by 11 months and about 3,000 miles — Korda shot 80 in the final round at Pebble Beach last summer.

The only highest rounds in her career were 81 – one at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship, when she was 15, and another at the 2013 US Women’s Open, at 14.

Hole 12 was the most difficult of the opening round. The tee was advanced and the pin was in front of a green that slopes from back to front, with a slightly more severe pitch that sends balls into the creek.

I was playing almost a full stroke over par when the afternoon groups started playing. There was also some suspicious execution on Korda’s part, starting with the club selection.

Sei Young Kim also watched the group in front fall into the water, although this helped her realize that the wind was stronger than it might have seemed. She had an 8-iron in her hand and then switched to a 7-iron, which she hit 18 feet behind the flag.

Korda was between the 7-iron and the 6-iron, and took the club harder, then backed away from the club a distance.

“I just didn’t know what to hit,” she said. “Sometimes it’s not very good to see the girls playing in front of you because of them – Gaby near the water, and I think Ingrid went into the water. It was just a tough day.”

She also flirted with trouble by playing at a low pitch rather than a safer shot behind the hole.

Turns out that was just the beginning of his problems. She got into a tough situation on the par-5 13th and had to two-putt from 55 feet for par. She missed a 3-foot par putt on the 15th and a 5-foot par putt on the 17th.

Korda didn’t make his first birdie until his 12th hole, No. 3, when he holed a 12-foot putt and smiled in mock celebration. Two holes later, however, she missed a 4-foot par putt and nearly found the water on the par-3 sixth, leading to bogey.

She finished with an uphill approach to the ninth that left her 55 feet away with a putt for a front pin. She ran 12 feet and missed her sixth bogey, to follow up with a sevenfold bogey on a hole where she left her mark for all the wrong reasons.

“I am human,” Korda said. “I’m going to have bad days. I’ve played some really solid golf so far. Today was just a bad day. That’s all I can say.”

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