This season, on the LPGA, there were 29 different winners with breakout performances. And yet, somehow, Nelly Korda wasn’t among them. For a player who once made winning look almost routine, with seven wins just a year ago, which included five back-to-back wins, watching a year pass without a single victory is baffling. It’s not like her game got worse, or she stopped racking up birdies. In fact, in most areas, her numbers were better than ever. So what went wrong?

On the Mixed Bag podcast, hosts Meg Adkins and Matthew Galloway didn’t hold back while unpacking Korda’s baffling season. “Let’s talk, Nelly. I just… I can’t believe she hasn’t had a win this year,” Adkins began. Matthew Galloway followed with the blunt summary of what many of us have been thinking.

“I think you watched the golf this week she put up, and this is kind of a good summary of her whole year, right? It is not kind of like she didn’t make any putts… She was like this kind of good but not great, like not great enough to win…” he stated. Galloway hinted that despite flashes of brilliance and moments where victory seemed within reach, Korda repeatedly fell just short. Consistency was there, her stats were strong, but the final push needed to secure a win never fully materialized.

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The numbers behind Nelly Korda’s winless season

Looking at Nelly’s stats, you’d notice that this year has actually been more or less the same as last year, with some areas of improvement. In 19 starts this year, she did not miss a single cut, finished within the top-10 in 9 events, out of which two were runner-up finishes. Last year, the year she had 7 wins, she missed three cuts out of the 16 events she played in. That’s one key indicator of better consistency this year.

Being more specific, her scoring average in 2025 was less than last year’s, dropping from 69.56 to 69.44. And it’s impressive given that she played more rounds this year (74) compared to in 2024 (60). Despite not having a single win this year, Korda is placed second in the overall scoring average on the LPGA this season.

Her ball-striking and driving distance also saw notable improvements. Korda added nearly five yards to her average driving distance, moving from 269.79 yards in 2024 to 274.58 yards in 2025. She climbed from 20th to 8th position in this regard. This improvement helped her gain 0.94 strokes off the tee. That places her first in the ranks, even above Jeeno Thitikul, who dominated this season.

On the greens, too, like Galloway pointed out, she wasn’t putting badly, but in off-season, Nelly should be doing something “radical with her putter.” In fact, there was an increase in her strokes gained in putting from 0.41 to 0.60 and a reduction in her average putts per round from 30.02 to 29.54. As a result, Nelly Korda made more birdies too. She recorded 335 birdies or better compared to 258 in her seven-win 2024 campaign.

The CPKC Women’s Open was her 13th start of this season, and by the end of it, Korda’s stats were — 69.87 scoring average & 2.35 Total strokes gained per round. After the same 13 starts last year, Korda’s scoring average was 70.04 with a 2.10 SG Total per round. It was worse, but the main difference? She had 6 wins by then, and zero this year.

Meg Adkins noted, “We obviously knew that it wasn’t gonna be a repeat of last year, but I just think um, you know… she was kind of close there a couple times…” And Adkins is right. She was, with better stats. But how does a player who made nearly 335 birdies or better still go home winless?

It could be just luck, or it could be some areas where she fell short. While she was longer off the tee in 2025, she was also less accurate, from 75.75% to 72.22% this season. That eventually spilt over into her approach shots, as her GIR%  also declined from 76.02% to 74.49%. Overall, her total SG dropped from 2.84 (1st) to 2.28 (3rd), still elite but not enough to match the competition. Korda even lost her World No.1 ranking to Thitikul, a position she held for 71 weeks.

And then there was her final round mystery. Her final-round scoring average leapt from 69.58 in 2024 to 71.27 this season. It was a crucial factor, as every time she’d come close, her final round scoring cost her some wins. This includes her final round finish at the U.S. Women’s Open, too.

The One Shot That Could Have Changed Nelly Korda’s 2025 Season

If there’s one shot that still lingers in Nelly Korda’s mind, it’s the one from No. 18 at the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills. What should have been a decisive moment became the defining image of her 2025 season. Korda hit the shot cleanest approach shot all year, yet adrenaline sent it 10 yards too long and slightly left, leaving her in a valley off the green.

The bogey that followed turned a potential win into a tie for second, and with it, a missed chance to rewrite her season’s narrative. “So if I could get one shot back, that would be it,” Korda said in Naples last week. She even admitted that “the one thing that you want to do is hold the trophy at the end of the day.”

And that’s precisely what Meg Adkins and Matthew Galloway pointed out. “I don’t think she’s like lost her game… you could tell… I think she wants to win. She’s a very strong competitor… but she doesn’t wanna admit that she wants it so much, you know?” Galloway pointed out.

That one shot, and the fine margins it highlights, perfectly encapsulate Korda’s 2025 season. Her game remained elite, her stats strong, and her competitive fire was intact. In the end, 2025 wasn’t a year of decline for Nelly Korda. But the smallest misstep at the wrong time kept victory just out of reach.