Whereas Rory McIlroy returns to the course for the primary time since completing the career Grand Slam on the Masters, skilled golf’s highlight turns to the LPGA Tour this week, because the world’s greatest girls’s golfers will compete within the Chevron Championship, the primary main of the season.
World No. 1 golfer Nelly Korda will try to defend her title at The Membership at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas. Final yr, Korda joined Nancy Lopez and Annika Sörenstam as the one golfers in LPGA historical past to win in 5 consecutive begins. Korda hasn’t but gained this yr.
After defeating Justin Rose in a one-hole playoff at Augusta Nationwide, McIlroy might be again in motion on the Zurich Basic of New Orleans, the one workforce occasion on the PGA Tour schedule.
McIlroy and his teammate, Shane Lowry, will try to turn into the primary pair to defend their title on the Zurich Basic for the reason that workforce idea was launched in 2017.
The LIV Golf League is also again in motion at Membership De Golf Chapultepec in Mexico Metropolis on Friday.
Here is a have a look at what to observe in golf this week:
Korda’s main protection
When Korda arrived on the Chevron Championship a yr in the past, she had already gained 4 instances that season and would add her fifth with a two-stroke victory over Maja Stark to assert her second profession main championship. Korda would win seven instances in 2024, including the Mizuho Americas Open in Might and The Annika in November.
This season, Korda might be looking for her first victory in her sixth begin. She was runner-up within the season-opening Hilton Grand Holidays Event of Champions in early February and tied for seventh on the Founders Cup.
“I might say final yr is final yr,” Korda stated. “It is a model new yr. What I achieved final yr, nobody can take that from me. That is all the time going to be such a terrific reminiscence, nevertheless it’s a recent week and recent mindset.”
Korda feels higher about her iron play after tying for sixteenth at 14 underneath in final week’s JM Eagle LA Championship at El Caballero Nation Membership in Tarzana, California, and she or he’s ready for her putter to warmth up once more.
“I believe that is the place it has been missing, is the putts that I used to be making final yr,” Korda stated. “I am simply not making as many this yr, however that is simply golf. I’ve gone via waves like this earlier than, and if I simply proceed working at it, hopefully it does click on.”
Korda revealed earlier this month that she takes her thoughts off golf by constructing Lego units. Final week, she accomplished a McLaren System 1 set {that a} fan gave her, together with a mannequin of Simba from the “Lion King.”
“Going to make my dad do LEGOs with me this week,” Korda stated. “Possibly do some video games. We each are actually aggressive. One thing we all the time performed collectively, Sequence. I believe I’m going to choose that up. Stuff like that will get my thoughts off it.”
Joyful to be there
Lilia Vu, the 2023 Chevron Championship winner, wasn’t positive she’d be capable to play golf once more after pulling out of final yr’s first main of the season with a again damage. Vu revealed on Tuesday that she could not hit a ball 40 yards on the driving vary earlier than she withdrew previous to the primary spherical.
“I believe final yr I used to be a lot in panic with would I ever play a golf spherical once more, not to mention a event spherical?” Vu stated. “At that time, you concentrate on various things. Not even defending that event; I can not even play one gap, in order that was sort of going via my thoughts. It was a very good time to reevaluate every part.”
Vu referred to as her lengthy hiatus from aggressive golf the “hardest two months” of her life. She learn rather a lot and listened to audio books whereas recovering. She additionally missed the U.S. Ladies’s Open earlier than returning to tie for second on the Ladies’s PGA Championship and the Ladies’s British Open.
“Simply tried my greatest to turn into a greater individual,” Vu stated. “That is all I may enhance at that time. Bodily, I used to be attempting my greatest with [physical therapy] and studying find out how to breathe appropriately and fixing my posture, the way in which I sit.
“Only a entire sort of life change I might say. I believe every part occurs for a cause, and I believe that wanted to occur in order that I may have extra physique consciousness.”
Zhang on the mend
Former two-time NCAA Division I nationwide champion Rose Zhang will miss her second straight begin whereas she recovers from a neck damage. She suffered the damage in her first-round match within the T-Cell Match Play in Las Vegas on April 3. She was compelled to tug out of her second-round match.
In a put up on Zhang’s Instagram account on April 6, she wrote: “Protected to say, issues have not been too scorching for me within the golf realm and I discovered myself struggling to compete in excessive spirits on account of an damage. Simply bear in mind, this is not a sob story. Whereas this era is exclusive and irritating, I discover nice optimism in getting higher and dealing laborious to compete on the highest degree.”
Zhang is ending up her research at Stanford, so she has appeared in solely three LPGA occasions this yr. She tied for tenth within the Event of Champions and missed the minimize on the Ford Championship in late March.
It is unclear when she’ll return to competitors.
Lindblad’s quick success
After picking up her first LPGA victory in solely her third begin as a rookie ultimately week’s JM Eagle LA Championship, former LSU star Ingrid Lindblad obtained a few shocking DMs on Instagram.
One got here from Sörenstam, a 10-time main championship winner, and the opposite from Suzann Pettersen, the newest European Solheim Cup workforce captain.
“Couple of larger names, in my view, that sort of congratulated me,” Lindblad stated. “Fairly cool. Your title is on the market. You are not a complete stranger.”
It won’t be lengthy earlier than Lindblad can be a family title in girls’s skilled golf. She was runner-up on the 2022 Augusta Nationwide Ladies’s Newbie and was ranked No. 1 within the World Newbie Golf Rating for 53 weeks.
Within the 2022 U.S. Ladies’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Membership in Southern Pines, North Carolina, she carded a 6-under 65 within the first spherical, the bottom rating by an newbie within the occasion. She tied for eleventh at 1 underneath. Lindblad tied for twenty sixth at 5 underneath in final yr’s Amundi Evian Championship.
Lindblad, from Sweden, wanted solely 9 begins on the Epson Tour final yr to earn her LPGA card.
Congratulatory messages from Sörenstam and Pettersen weren’t her solely surprises since successful on Sunday.
“I am imagined to pay for one bag after I fly Delta,” Lindblad stated. “They waived my baggage charge and I am like, ‘Alright.’ However I do not know if that was me or they did one thing mistaken.”
Schauffele makes unlikely help
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Justin Thomas wins RBC Heritage with lengthy putt in a playoff
Justin Thomas is fired up after sinking the lengthy putt in a playoff for the RBC Heritage win.
After amassing his first PGA Tour victory in almost three years ultimately week’s RBC Heritage at Harbour City Golf Hyperlinks in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, Justin Thomas offered reporters with an unlikely reply when he was requested about his dramatic placing enchancment this season.
He credited two-time main champion Xander Schauffele for serving to him flip issues round. Close to the top of final yr, Thomas requested Schauffele to play a observe spherical with him close to their properties in Jupiter, Florida.
“You guys clearly know Xander, however he does not go away any field unchecked,” Thomas stated. “Like he stated that day, he is like, ‘If it has something to do with you doubtlessly bettering in golf, I’ve most likely completed it or tried it.’ So I simply was speaking to him about this course of and the way he reads greens and the way he sees issues and his observe and every part.”
What Thomas found out was that he did not have a constant “dwelling base” when it got here to training placing.
A yr in the past, Thomas ranked 174th on tour in strokes gained: placing (minus-.478). This season, he is twenty fourth in that statistic (.459) and was seventh within the area over 72 holes at Hilton Head Island.
“I believe greater than something, it was simply kind of he was looking and possibly attempting too laborious,” Schauffele stated. “He is completed so many good issues prior to now that it was kind of like possibly an eye-opening. Form of like, ‘I used to do, three, 4, 5 of the issues we had been speaking about, and I ended doing them as a result of I used to be down this loopy rabbit gap of attempting to get higher.’
“[I] felt like all of the solutions had been proper in entrance of him. JT is so good that he figured it out fairly shortly.”
JT’s sticking along with his caddie
In selecting up his first win on tour for the reason that 2022 PGA Championship, Thomas was aided by Max Homa’s former caddie, Joe Greiner. However Thomas advised SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio on Monday that his common caddie, Matt “Rev” Minister, might be again on his bag when he recovers from a again damage.
“All of us knew that stepping into — it was very a lot a fill-in state of affairs,” Thomas stated. “We had been so fortunate that Joe was obtainable till Rev bought wholesome.”
