Nelly Korda ended 2025 in a way few would have predicted twelve months earlier. The player who began the year with six victories in seven starts, a historic major at The ANNIKA, and a vice-like grip on the world number one ranking limped to the finish line with just one top-10 in her final nine events, a missed cut at the CME Group Tour Championship, and a quiet drop to world No. 4. The 27-year-old American remains the most marketable and naturally gifted ball-striker of her generation, yet the numbers from the second half of 2025 expose three glaring, interconnected weaknesses that, if left unaddressed, will keep the major trophies in someone else’s hands in 2026.
### 1. Wedge Game Collapse Under Pressure (50–125 yards)
For years, Korda’s 100–125 yard approach play was statistically elite; in 2023 and 2024 she ranked inside the top 5 on the LPGA in proximity from that range. In 2025, after the machinery broke down post-July, she plummeted to 87th. The difference is stark:
– First 10 starts of 2025: 24 ft 9 in average proximity (100–125 yd)
– Final 12 starts: 34 ft 2 in (worse than the LPGA average of 31 ft 6 in)
More telling is the dispersion pattern. Data from TrackMan and ShotLink shows her bad miss from that yardage shifted from a soft left draw to a violent two-way variety: thin pulls that fly the green and chunky blocks that come up 25 yards short. When the driver is offline (which it increasingly was late in the year), Korda is now forced to hit far more wedges from 90–120 yards on Sundays. In her last five Sunday rounds, she lost a combined 9.8 strokes to the field from exactly that range. For context, she had never lost more than 3 strokes total in a single season from those distances before 2025.
Fix required: A complete wedge system overhaul this off-season. Sources close to her camp confirm she has already begun working with a new short-game coach in Florida, focusing on a lower, more dynamic release pattern that eliminates the early extension that crept into her downswing under fatigue. Expect to see her carry an extra gap wedge (54° or 56°) in 2026 to reduce full-swing reliance from the 105–115 yard window.
### 2. Driving Accuracy When Swing Speed Exceeds 98 mph
Korda’s power is her superpower; she averaged 278 yards off the tee in 2025, second only to Charley Hull among regular players. But the correlation between swing speed and fairways hit became painfully clear after the Olympics:
– Rounds where average swing speed ≤ 97.5 mph: 78 % fairways hit
– Rounds where average swing speed ≥ 98 mph: 51 % fairways hit
The harder she chased distance to keep up with the new wave of long-hitters (Yin, Lee, Hull, Zhang), the more the clubface opened at impact. Her late-season driving accuracy of 63.4 % ranked 104th on tour, a career low. When the driver is wild, Korda’s elite recovery game is still good enough to scramble at 64 %, but it drains emotional energy and leaves her one or two shots farther from the hole on approach than her peak form. In majors, that gap becomes fatal.
Fix required: A deliberate cap on swing speed in non-major weeks and a return to the smoother tempo she showed in her six-win blitz earlier in the year. She has quietly installed a Swing Catalyst force-plate system at her Bradenton home to monitor ground-pressure patterns that trigger the over-the-top move when she “goes at it.”
### 3. Putting Inside 8 Feet in Final Rounds
Perhaps the most shocking stat of all: from August to November 2025, Korda ranked 132nd on the LPGA in make percentage from 4–8 feet on Sundays (61.8 %). That is not a typo. The player who once drained everything inside ten feet suddenly developed a stroke that leaked putts both left and right under pressure. The yips label has been whispered in private circles, though those closest to her insist it is mechanical, not mental: a subtle early release of the right hand caused by tension in the right forearm.
The consequence was brutal. In her last eight Sunday rounds, she three-putt eight times from inside 12 feet and missed a combined 47 feet of putts to either lose or fail to win the tournament outright. At the CME finale, she missed from five feet on 16, four feet on 17, and six feet on 18 to turn a potential playoff into a tie for 34th.
Fix required: She spent three weeks in November with putting guru Stephen Sweeney (who helped Lydia Ko rediscover her stroke in 2023–24). The early footage shows a return to a slightly open stance, a shorter backswing, and a conscious effort to keep the putter face rotating rather than flipping. Perhaps most importantly, Korda has committed to playing the first four events of 2026 with the same putter (a Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5 she used during her 2021–2022 dominance) instead of the rotating cast of six models she experimented with in 2025.
### The Bottom Line
Talent has never been the question with Nelly Korda. Execution under fatigue and pressure has become the separator. If she plugs these three leaks (wedge precision, controlled driving aggression, and a repeatable Sunday putting stroke), the 2026 season could look a lot like the first half of 2025. If even one of them lingers, the likes of Lilia Vu, Rose Zhang, and a resurgent Lydia Ko will continue to feast.
The off-season work is already underway. Korda has never been more motivated, or more aware of exactly what needs to change. The golf world knows what she is capable of when everything clicks. 2026 will reveal whether she has truly solved the puzzle that derailed her second half of 2025.
