On the sixth hole at Riviera, Nelly Korda stopped, accepted a spare pair of shoes from her trainer Kim Baughman and swapped into her usual Nike kicks — the original pair, she later noted, had been gifted by LeBron James. The small change was emblematic of a jarring Thursday: Korda finished the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open at 2 over, carding a 73 that left one of the season’s hottest players far from the early lead.
Her score placed Korda seven shots behind first-round leader Jennifer Kupcho, a gap large enough to push her well down the LPGA leaderboard after only 18 holes. Korda teed off at 7:29 a.m. local time in her 12th U.S. Women’s Open and closed a morning that produced more grinding than glamour for a player who arrived at Riviera with three wins this calendar year.
“I just felt like I was grinding to save pars,” Korda said after the round, a plain assessment of a day in which she repeatedly had to fight for bogeys and pars rather than convert birdie chances. She added bluntly, “It wasn’t a great day. I hit it really good Monday through Wednesday, so I honestly have no idea where this came from.” The contrast between her warmup form and Thursday’s score is a blunt reason why the leaderboard looks the way it does.
That contrast matters because Korda has been among the sport’s most consistent players in 2026. She entered the U.S. Women’s Open with three wins and had finished outside the top two just once in seven appearances this year — a run that made her one of the favorites despite the elusive nature of this particular major.
Which is where the stakes sharpen: the U.S. Women’s Open is the major that has so far eluded Korda. She played her first one at 14, finished tied for second at Erin Hills in 2025 and arrives at Riviera — hosting a women’s major for the first time — with a record at this championship that mixes missed cuts and top-10s. Across 11 starts at the U.S. Women’s Open she has three missed cuts, three top-10s and five finishes outside the top 45.
The friction is immediate. A player who said on Tuesday that this was the title she wanted now faces the practical problem of erasing seven shots on the leaderboard. Korda acknowledged the emotional cost of past close calls, saying, “Definitely have gotten my heart broken a couple times,” and then, with a wry short answer when asked whether this was heartbreaking, replied, “Apparently not.”
The shoe switch was a small, human moment amid those larger stakes: Kim Baughman handing her a spare pair on the sixth hole, Korda changing into shoes she prefers and moving on. It did not change the scoreboard, but it captured the mixture of routine care and improvisation that can decide a major over four rounds.
Now the unresolved question sits squarely in front of Korda and everyone watching the LPGA leaderboard: can a player who has won three times this year and who has been so often within reach of the summit at majors rebuild from a 73 and climb into contention? She left Riviera saying, “There’s no better place to be than in the hunt on the back nine on Sunday at a major championship, especially at the U.S. Women’s Open,” a line that framed the only practical answer — she still intends to chase it.
