Nelly Korda is among the players in the field for The Chevron Championship this week, the first major championship of the 2026 LPGA Tour season.
Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston, Texas, plays host to the tournament, which has a purse of $9 million.
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And Korda enters the event in stunning form, posting one win and three runner-up finishes from her four appearances this season.
The 16-time LPGA winner, who claimed her second major win at The Chevron Championship in 2024, has now named her golfing role models in the build-up to the tournament.
Nelly Korda names her two golfing role models
When asked if she has any role models in golf, world number two Korda said: “My sister. Always.
“Yeah, I looked up to her from a really young age. I admired her. I wanted to be here since she joined the tour in 2011.
“Obviously Tiger Woods, because my sister always says like our generation, that’s kind of like Tiger’s kids.
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“We watched him dominate the game at that time. I would say those two in golf, yeah.”
PGA Tour legend Woods is a 15-time major champion, while Korda’s sister Jessica Korda is a six-time winner on the LPGA Tour.
The Korda sisters competed at the Ford Championship last month, reuniting in the same event for the first time in almost three years.
Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
Nelly Korda idolised Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal
Korda’s discussion on her golfing role models stemmed from talk about finishing as runner-up at events, and whether lashing out in frustration at a near miss is bad.
Having often been in that position throughout her career, she said if lashing out is bad: “No. I mean, there is some people that fuels some people. Everyone has a different personality.
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“At the end of the day we’re all human beings. The thing that’s different about athletes versus someone that’s not is like sometimes we’re under a microscope so you see everything.
“Coco Gauff, she was slamming her tennis racquet. She thought was in private, and you have video cameras there.
“At the end of the day I think sometimes we’re under a microscope where you see all our actions, our emotions.
“It’s hard, but you learn so much from that, of knowing, okay, this is how I want to act and this is not how I want to act.
“Let me reevaluate how I’m putting myself into that position. And if I’m being a good role model to kids as well.”
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Korda was then asked how long it took her to realize that cameras are everywhere on the LPGA Tour, and if she saw PGA Tour star Max Homa throwing his club in anger at last week’s RBC Heritage.
“I did not see him, no,” she replied. “For me, it changed probably in 2021 when I won my first major, the Olympics, and then obviously in 2024 when I won seven times that year.
“I saw more cameras on me and I saw more girls come up to me, more people saw how I acted. I’ve always tried to be very calm.
“My two role models in life have been Roger [Federer] and [Rafael] Nadal where in Roger [Rafa] you have that fiery kind of personality of never giving up and like being an entertainer, and then you have… which I’m definitely more on the calmer side.
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“Then you have Roger Federer who’s very calm and he just flows through the air, elegant. Those have always been the two that I admired and looked up to and wanted to kind of blend those two to kind of make that myself.”
Tennis legends Federer and Nadal represent ideal role models, with the pair having gone down in sporting history for their efforts on the court.
But they also conducted themselves admirably off it, with their approach to life undoubtedly playing a key role in their phenomenal success.
Read more:
Nelly Korda names the player on the LPGA Tour who is ‘really inspiring’ her right now
The LPGA Tour praised for its approach towards slow play as player given punishment in latest event
Justin Rose pleased with ‘amazing news’ about Michelle Wie West
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