Nelly Korda Isn't Caitlin Clark. That's Okay!

I always loved how the LPGA decided its Hall of Fame should be perhaps the strongest meritocracy in all of sports. It does not mess around with cloakroom politics or sympathy exemptions. The criteria for induction are crystal clear. A player must earn 27 points during her playing career. You get one point for a win, two points for a major championship, one point for an Olympic gold medal, and one point for each Vare Trophy or Rolex Player of the Year honor. There are no exceptions for injury or apathy, but also no exclusions because you pissed off the press or didn’t dance for the right people.

Instead of imagining what might have happened, the LPGA Hall of Fame only considers what did happen. Baseball, football, basketball — even men’s golf — have numerous athletes in their Halls of Fame because they made fans feel a certain way. Women’s golf plays no favorites. It’s refreshing.

It’s also on the cusp of inducting the player who, in my opinion, best embodies this ethos.

Nelly Korda needs just one more point to get in. She earned her 26th career point last week, when she clinched the Rolex Player of the Year award for a season that saw her win five times, two of them majors. This week, she’s teeing it up in the ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, an event she’s won three times in six years since its inception. If Korda doesn’t win this week, she still has a chance to get into the Hall of Fame with a win in the CME Group Tour Championship. Even if she doesn’t win, she’s just $254,000 away from becoming the sport’s all-time leading money winner. A second-place finish in either event would nudge her ahead of Annika Sorenstam, who has held the top spot for 25 years.

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We are watching one of the best female golfers in history perform at the height of her powers, and it feels important to emphasize that, if only because so often the conversation around Korda seems to be that she’s not doing enough for the sport.

Winning is never enough. There is a very clear expectation in numerous circles (media among them) that Korda must also act as some combination of a saleswoman, runway model, charismatic talk show guest, and internet celebrity. It has been a little exhausting for an admitted introvert who just wants to win golf tournaments, then unwind at home doing needlepoint.

When the WTGL debuted last week, Korda was not part of it. She also chose not to participate in the LPGA’s Asian Swing, skipping a month of tournaments in China, Korea, Malaysia, and Japan. Her absence in either wasn’t a surprise. This is the third straight year Korda hasn’t played in Asia. As for WTGL, Korda expressed reservations about the format from its inception, arguing that it would have been a lot better if women and men were competing alongside each other instead of trying to build two separate brands of similar golf. Players who did participate then had to field questions about her not being there, which then shined a bigger spotlight on her absence.

“I think Nelly would obviously be very good for the game,” Rose Zhang told Front Office Sports. “She’s a headline name, so it would obviously bring a lot of attention to WTGL. If Season 1 goes well, then maybe she would be on board.”

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Zhang’s sentiment is understandable. Of course you’d want the game’s most popular player to be part of WTGL. But it was a reminder that the burden Korda bears is heavier than any other player in the women’s game. She is constantly being asked why she isn’t doing more to sell the LPGA’s brand, even though she has clearly pushed herself to enter spaces that once would have seemed beyond her normal comfort zone. She attended the Met Gala in 2024 and posed for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2025. Even this year, when she could have been at the Asian Swing, Korda showed up on Caleb Pressley’s comedy show, Sundae Conversation, and was game to crack jokes and be on the receiving end of some playful teasing by Pressley. The four-minute clip has been viewed more than 500k times. It might take 10 WTGL matches to reach that many people. She also did a podcast with the Jonas Brothers, who have 5.48 million subscribers on YouTube. In December, she’ll compete once again in the PNC Challenge, where she and her dad might face off against Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie. It would be hard to dream up better exposure than that.

The golf world (and I include golf media) keeps pleading for Korda to do for the LPGA what Caitlin Clark has done for the WNBA — lead an explosion of interest and growth. I think we ought to be honest at this point and admit that isn’t going to happen. And it’s no fault of Korda’s.

Women’s golf faces an uphill battle to earn a slice of the public’s attention. It starts with the television broadcast, and Korda has no control over how the game is presented. She is already doing her part by doing what previously promising American phenoms like Michelle Wie West, Lexi Thompson, and Danielle Kang could not: win consistently on the game’s biggest stage. Korda has earned her credibility and her fame by making birdies and winning tournaments, not by posing for magazine covers or building a thirsty following on social media. No matter how good she is at her job, people keep asking for more; they keep begging for her to solve the sport’s myriad problems with some combination of charm and pizzazz, neither of which comes naturally to her. It has to be exhausting. Korda didn’t get in this to be famous. She got in it because she’s a competitive demon.

Thankfully, the LPGA Hall of Fame isn’t asking her to be anything other than a great golfer, one of the best we’ve ever seen. One more win and the subjectivity of her greatness will no longer be a matter for debate. It will be a statement of fact. Even though she’s pushed herself to be more of the personality the game thinks it needs, it will be nice — once and for all — when the facts get to speak louder than anything else.