Nelly Korda And The Gold Medal — She’s Off To A Great Start

Now it’s the ladies’ turn and here’s a quick question — What will the women’s Olympic Golf competition have that the men’s did not?

Easy answer — the world’s No. 1 player in the field.  Even more than that — ALL of the top 10 and the top 14.  Imagine being the 15th-ranked player in the world (Min Ji Park) and you couldn’t make the South Korean team!

The ladies took over the Kasumigaseki County Club with the first round starting late Tuesday night into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, east coast time.  Unlike the men’s Thursday-to-Sunday battle, the women play Wednesday through Saturday.

Unlike the men’s competition, the women’s competition returns ALL the medals winners from 2016 in Rio — Inbee Park (Gold), Lydia Ko (Silver) and Shanshan Feng (Bronze).

Things got off to a hot, very hot start on Wednesday with temperatures soaring into the high 90s and the “feel-like” mark heading to 105-degrees and eventually topping out at 111.

Nelly Korda, who turned 23 last Wednesday (July 28) got off to a nice start on day one.  Her four-under par 67 left her just a shot behind first round leader Madeline Sagstrom of Sweden (66), the 75th ranked player in the world and winner of one event on the LPGA Tour.

Unlike the men’s event, all of the top 10 are here and most put themselves right in the mix with Korda leading the way.  No. 2 Jin Young Ko was the best of the ultra-strong South Korean contingent — she posted 68.  Defending Gold medalist Inbee Park was simply a fairway-finding, green-hitting machine.  She was good for 69 and had a lot of birdie putts burning the lips — her number could easily have been lower.  Fourth-ranked Sei Young Kim was in with 69 as was American Danielle Kang.  South Korean Hoo Joo Kim signed for 70 as did Japan’s best hope for a medal — Nasa Hataoka.  Minjee Lee shot even par while the only two top 10 strugglers were Canadian Brooke Henderson (74) and U.S. Open champ Yuka Saso (74).

With so many highly-ranked players in the mix, you won’t see what happened last week with the men — namely two players outside the world’s top 200 winning medals.

The greens were firmer for the ladies in round one — no overnight rains to soften them — yet.

That extreme heat was something to battle.  Most players were using ice packs on tee boxes to cool themselves while they waited to hit.  On the 15th hole, Lexi Thompson’s caddie, Jack Fulgham, went down and Donna Wilkins from the LPGA Tour staff had to shoulder that massive USA bag for the last two holes.  Whoever came up with those huge American bags had no regard for the caddies, that’s for sure.  Lexi was four-over at one point but rallied late to post one-over par 72 and found how hard it is to score from the rough.

Korda’s 67 could have been a lot better.  She suffered a couple of early bogeys on the front nine but offset them with four birdies then added two more coming home.  She made a couple of loose swings with wedges in scoring position and had trouble with the speed of her long putts for most of the day. Still, she’s right where she needs to be.

She acknowledged the hot conditions after her round.  “Hard for sure, I handled it pretty well.”  She wasn’t overly excited about her start, knowing there’s maybe, and it’s now a big maybe, 54 to play.  “It’s so early on,” she added.  One thing that does thrill her is competing in these games.  “I mean, it’s an amazing feeling.  A huge honor to represent our country.”

Probably the response you’d get from every player in this field.  These ladies are excited and most played well.

But there was some bad news following the first round.

There are storms approaching that will affect play on Saturday, perhaps before.  Officials are considering cutting the competition to 54 holes.

In a memo sent to players late Wednesday, officials warned that, “based on our medical advisor’s input, playing more than 18 holes in one day is not advisable.” The heat index on day one topped out at 111 degrees and the forecast calls for similar temperatures on Thursday and Friday.

If the forecast, which calls for storms on Saturday and Sunday, doesn’t improve that leaves officials with only one option, cutting the event to 54 holes.

According to the memo, officials will wait until after the second round on Thursday to make the decision on whether to play the scheduled 72 holes or reducing the event to 54 holes.

Storms a coming, time to get out and go as low as you can.

One of those good news, bad news scenarios.  Good news is so many skilled players are in the hunt.  Bad news is no one wants to see a 54-hole event.

36-hole update:  Nelly Shoots 62 With A Double-Bogey At 18th:

Nelly Korda was making a mockery of the course on day two.  All she did was shoot 30 on the front nine to get to 10-under at the turn.  She holed a 15-footer for eagle two at the short (248-yard par four sixth).  She was making putts from 10, 15, 20 feet — everywhere.  After birdies at 12, 13 and 14, she added two more at 16 (seven feet) and 17 (eight feet).  She was 11-under for the day and all she needed was birdie at 18 for 59.  But she missed her drive left, in the rough. She was blocked by a tree, punched out down the fairway and left herself what looked like a pretty routine pitch from 50 yards.  But she hit an awful wedge that was short and in the front greenside bunker.  Her fourth left her about nine feet for bogey and she missed, shot 32 for 62, tying her career low.  She’s 13-under and four ahead of Aditi Ashok (67-66) from India, Nanna Koertz-Madsen (69-64) and Emily Kristine Pedersen (70-63), both from Norway.

As far as shortening the tournament to 54 holes,  the players were informed via a memo Thursday afternoon that the plan remains to complete 72 holes on Saturday as scheduled, “if weather permits.”  But if the approaching tropical storm makes it impossible to complete 72 holes by Sunday evening, officials will revert to a 54-hole event.

“It’s the Olympics Games, first and foremost, and we want to give the athletes every opportunity to play 72 holes, in line with what we would do for major championships,” Heather Daly-Donofrio, an Olympic technical delegate.  “The players have known since yesterday that we may have to shorten to 54 *holes), but we want to give them every opportunity to play.”

The updated plan also calls for earlier tee times for Friday and Saturday. Round 3 is scheduled to begin off the first and 10th tees in threesomes at 7:30 a.m. local time (6:30 p.m. ET on Thursday). The fourth round would follow a similar format and begin at 6:30 a.m. local time on Saturday if weather permits.

Women’s Olympic Scoreboard: