LOS ANGELES \u2014 World No. 1 Nelly Korda had a mindset shift this season, and the goal was to not crash out with any mistake or bogey.<\/p>\n
In that vein, she started using Post-it notes with positive affirmations and put them on her bathroom mirror. She didn\u2019t divulge any of them or what she might write for Sunday\u2019s final round of the U.S. Women\u2019s Open, but the message could be a career-defining one.<\/p>\n
Korda finished with three consecutive birdies for a four-under 67 to move into a share of the lead Saturday at six under at Riviera Country Club. She\u2019s the biggest name on the leaderboard, but there\u2019s plenty of them up there. She\u2019s tied at the top with 13-time LPGA and past major champion Sei Young Kim.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started at the beginning of the year writing positive notes to myself in my bathroom, and I\u2019ve seen a bunch of athletes do that,\u201d Korda said. \u201cSo other athletes inspire me, too. I started doing that and it\u2019s a great reminder, and I do it occasionally here and there. I travel with Post-it notes and I stick them on to the mirror when I get ready and I write myself a positive note and that\u2019s my thought for the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Korda has been in a good place all season, having won three times\u2014including her third major at the Chevron Championship\u2014and finishing in the top 10 in all seven of her events. She\u2019s on pace to make it all eight. Korda, who was two shots off the lead after a terrific 67 on Friday, following a frustrating opening-round 73. After that round, her sister Jessica helped her tweak something with her grip on the driving range, and Korda has been on fire since.<\/p>\n
Korda has a chance to make history. If she wins her first U.S. Women\u2019s Open, she\u2019ll be the youngest American player to reach four major wins since Mickey Wright did it in 1960. She\u2019d also become the first American to win the first two majors of the season since Pat Bradley in 1986.<\/p>\n
Korda will also be in fine company in the final pairing with co-leader Kim, also a major winner. The South Korean shot a three-under 68 Saturday. The 33-year-old Kim won the 2020 KPMG Women\u2019s PGA Championship and can draw on that experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to focus on the course,\u201d Kim said. \u201cThis course you really need patience and just focus on one shot at a time. It\u2019s boring, but I have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are 13 players four shots or closer to the lead, and so many have majors under their belts. It\u2019s a dream leaderboard for the USGA that also includes In Gee Chun and Jennifer Kupcho, who are one shot back of Korda and Kim.<\/p>\n
Chun, who shot a two-under 69 Sunday, has won three majors, and it\u2019s something she takes great pride in. Like so many major winners, it\u2019s experience that can pay dividends in a showdown of so many of the world\u2019s best players.<\/p>\n
Kupcho seems to have unlocked something special at Riviera, and part of that is because she finally listened to her parents. Kupcho, who was the Chevron Championship the last time it was played in Mission Hills, said this week that they\u2019d been trying to get her to prepare for U.S. Opens by playing the course ahead of time. She didn\u2019t do that until this week and now she\u2019s in contention and said she loves Riviera.<\/p>\n
Her parents usually come to the U.S. Women\u2019s Open but hadn\u2019t this year. They surprised her on Saturday with their presence and got to see her shoot a two-under 69 with a chance to win Sunday. She\u2019s carrying a sizzling putter and has gained 1.93 strokes on the field, ranking second.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t want to just show up on the first tee, so that was nice of them,\u201d Kupcho said. \u201cThey called me this morning and they\u2019re like, \u2018oh, you look really close to us.\u2019 I was like, \u2018what are you saying?\u2019 And they\u2019re like \u2018we\u2019re in Santa Monica.\u2019 So that was pretty cool. Pretty cool to have them here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mexican native Gaby Lopez is in a three-way tie for fifth along with Nasa Hataoka and Ruoning Yin at two shots off the lead. Lopez opened with a first-round 68 and has played solid, consistent golf all week. She\u2019s made a habit to always meet and talk with golf course staff at every tournament she goes to and no doubt her gallery will have the grounds crew and other Riviera workers in it.<\/p>\n
Alison Lee, who grew up in nearby Valencia and played at UCLA, hung in there without her best stuff on Saturday. Lee, who has 1-year-old son Levi with her this week, was tied for the lead after 36 holes but a one-over 72 Saturday has her three shots off the lead. The 31-year-old Lee is still searching for her first major.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hurts a little bit being in the final group and not being able to play as well as I wanted to,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI really felt like I was just scratching at the wall all day. Didn\u2019t feel like I had my A-game out there, but I made a lot of really good par putts to keep me in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back on my round, one over, I feel like it could have been way higher than that. Going to just try and take positives from that. I love chasing, and so it\u2019ll be fun tomorrow to try and just play really aggressively and try and chase the leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 World No. 1 Nelly Korda had a mindset shift this season, and the goal was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,44,85],"class_list":["post-721201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}