HOUSTON, Texas — Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 2 Nelly Korda put on another masterclass in the second round of The Chevron Championship.

The 27-year-old, who won this event back in 2024, fired her second consecutive 7-under 65 on Friday to move seven ahead of the pack after the morning wave concluded play at Memorial Park Golf Course.

Starting the day with a two-shot lead at 7-under overall, Korda birdied both the par-5 first and par-5 third holes to race out to 9-under. She stumbled with a bogey on the par-4 sixth hole but then erased that mistake with a birdie on the par-3 9th hole to turn in 34 and once again sit at 9-under total.

The 16-time LPGA Tour winner stuffed her tee shot on the par-3 11th hole and cleaned up the resulting birdie try to climb to 10-under. Korda followed that up by curling in a lengthy birdie putt on 12, a lip-in that saw her move to 11-under, and she got to 12-under after making her sixth birdie of the round on 14.

The two-time major champion then slammed the door shut on the rest of the field when she finished with a pair of birdies on the par-4 17th and 18th holes to post at 14-under total and sit atop the heap heading into the weekend in Houston, Texas.

“Overall, really happy with today,” Korda said. “Started a little bit slower, 2-under on the front. But it was nice to make a birdie on nine to get it going into the back nine. Back nine is definitely, I would say, a little tougher overall than the front nine, so I was hitting it really well, and I'm just capitalizing on really good shots.”

Korda was riding a wave of excellent momentum heading into this championship, having finished no worse than T2 in the four starts she has made ahead of the first major tournament of the 2026 LPGA Tour season. She won the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions after the event was shortened to 54 holes due to unplayable conditions and then finished runner-up to Hyo Joo Kim in back-to-back weeks at the Fortinet Founders Cup and the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass.

The Olympic gold medalist tied for second in her most recent tournament appearance at the Aramco Championship, sharing runner-up honors with Leona Maguire after Lauren Coughlin won by a whopping five shots at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.

Considering that slate of results, one that saw Korda take a substantial amount of time off when she skipped the spring Asian swing, Nelly is clearly incredibly comfortable with the state of her game, both physically and mentally, a reassured ease that’s proving lethal to her fellow competitors.

“I just feel really good. I'm hitting it in the spots that I want to, missing it into the spots that I want to,” said Korda. “The communication between (Jason McDede) and I is really good where if there is a tucked pin and it's kind of stupid, I would rather give myself a longer lag putt and give myself the best opportunity for par. That's the way we been playing the past two days, not taking stupid risks.

“We're going to go after the ones we can, and where we have to play back and miss in the right spots, that's kind of what I'm doing. I think overall, everything is really flowing.”

Korda’s 36-hole total of 130 is the lowest in the history of an LPGA major championship, excluding The Amundi Evian Championship, and it’s the first time in the Floridian's 10-year career that Korda has carded a pair of 65s on days one and two of a major.

Since 1980, only two other athletes have recorded two consecutive rounds of 65 or better and gone on to win—Brooke Henderson at the 2022 Amundi Evian Championship and Ayaka Furue at that same event in 2024. In terms of the chasers, only Morgan Pressel has ever recovered from a six-stroke deficit to come back and win The Chevron Championship, doing so in 2007, a statistic that doesn’t indicate much hope for the rest of Korda's LPGA Tour counterparts that are currently bobbing in her wake.

Putting the pedal down and keeping it smashed against the floorboard, particularly in a major championship, is a skill, one that most professional golfers have to learn how to do quickly if they aspire to win more than once or twice over the course of their careers.

Korda has figured it out a couple of times, winning both the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and 2024 LPGA Drive On Championship after holding the 36-hole lead, the latter of which saw her do so in a playoff over Lydia Ko at Bradenton Country Club.

And through 36 holes at Memorial Park, Korda is looking like she will do just that once again, showing no signs of succumbing to any sort of major championship pressure with two rounds remaining in the Lone Star State.

“I would say what's challenging about playing with the lead is you have a target on your back in a sense, but also, I just enjoy it. I enjoy golf,” said Korda. “I think this year I wanted to have a different mindset change of if I get into trouble, I'll figure it out. Not like you look at something and, excuse my French, and say I'm (redacted).

“There are times where I've had that, and now, I'm like, I'll figure it out. So that's my biggest takeaway from last year and the years before. I don't want to have that mindset. I want to be like, okay, I'll figure it out and not stress myself out too much.”

Nelly Korda Posts Pair of 65s to Lead The Chevron Championship

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