Nelly Korda’s 2025 season was a paradox: elite performance without a single win. She posted seven top-five finishes, ranked top three in multiple strokes gained categories, and even outperformed her seven-win 2024 campaign. Yet the absence of trophies gnawed at her more than any bad round ever could. Ahead of the AIG Women’s Open on Wednesday, she revealed her biggest challenge, a battle with frustration and expectations as her profile grew.

“I just decided that I need to stop getting so frustrated with everything. Like I’d hit a great shot, it’d be a divot, and I would get frustrated. What is going on? Why am I getting these bounces? I just really hate this attitude,” Nelly Korda said in the press conference.

Korda admitted that spiraling over uncontrollable outcomes drained her faster than any loss. Solid shots landing in bad spots became mental traps. So she made a change. Instead of fixating on results, she narrowed her focus to preparation, rest, and effort, the parts she could control.

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Her closest call came at the U.S. Women’s Open 2025, where she finished runner-up to Maja Stark at Erin Hills. She later called her approach onto the 18th green that week the shot she most wanted back. Korda said she hit the swing so well only to watch the outcome go the other way.

Two other runner-up finishes and a 14th-place showing at the Chevron reinforced the same pattern. Her performance was there, but the wins were not. Golf analyst Brandel Chamblee even labeled it “the best winless season in LPGA history.”

“I just told myself I’m not going to have this attitude. If you slip back into it when you get a little tired, but you’re like, okay, snap out of it. This is not why you’re doing this,” Korda added in the press conference while answering if her own expectation changed on the golf course since 2025.

That recalibration paid off immediately in 2026. She leaned on her support system, stopped measuring her worth by outside noise, and the results followed. At the Chevron in April, she won by five strokes, the largest margin in 18 years. A month later, she captured her first U.S. Women’s Open in a tight finish at Riviera Maya, her fourth major overall and third leg of the career Grand Slam.

What is Nelly Korda chasing at the AIG Women’s Open?

A victory at Royal Lytham & St. Annes this week would complete her career Grand Slam. She has already won the Chevron, the Women’s PGA, and the U.S. Women’s Open; the AIG Women’s Open is the missing piece. Links golf courses could complicate that pursuit in ways traditional parkland courses rarely do.

Korda has a complicated relationship with links golf. She was runner-up at St. Andrews in 2024, leading by two strokes late before Lydia Ko birdied the final hole. That remains her best finish at the championship. Links conditions, including firm turf, low-running shots, and unpredictable bounces, also put extra stress on her wrist compared to a typical LPGA Tour event.

Even so, she arrives with a different mindset than in 2025. Her focus on process rather than frustration may be the key to finally conquering links golf and completing the Grand Slam.