Jessica Korda is a classic embodiment of the 21st century international golfer. Her parents are retired professional tennis champions from the Czech Republic Petr Korda and Regina Rajchrtová, and Jessica was born in Florida, where the couple had taken up residence.
Her father won the 1998 Australian Open (Grand Slam tournament), while Regina represented her native country at the 1998 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Jessica played in 2006 for the Czech Republic in the World Amateur Championship, and four years later she represented the United States in the same tournament, as she has dual citizenship.
Jessica took up golf at age 8, was a member of the 2009 Junior Solheim Cup and the 2010 Curtis Cup. She won the 2010 South Atlantic Amateur and was runner-up in the 2010 U.S. Women’s Amateur. While still an amateur, she finished ninth in her U.S. Women’s Open debut in 2008, with the only round under 70 on Sunday (69); and also made the cut in the following year’s edition.
A finalist in the 2010 LPGA Qualifying School, she earned her membership on the 2011 LPGA Tour, turned 18 in her second event and competed in 15 tournaments in her rookie season, with a 19th best finish and 92nd in the end-of-season rankings.
Her first major victory as a professional came in the first tournament of the 2012 season, curiously (considering her father’s record) at the Women’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, where she won on the second hole of a six-player playoff. Two years later, after a 2013 season when her best result was a tie for second place and she finished 25th in the rankings (42nd in 2012), she returned to the winning path and achieved in 2014 her second LPGA Tour victory: the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic. Four months later she won a third title, the Airbus LPGA Classic in Alabama, and finished the season with her highest final ranking to date (16th).
The following year, she once again showed her globetrotting credentials by winning the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia by four strokes ahead of three of the Tour’s top stars – Shanshan Feng, Lydia Ko and Stacy Lewis – and finished 27th on the money list.
Two relatively weak years followed: 24th and 26th, respectively, on the 2016 and 2017 earnings lists, albeit with a second-place finish as the best result in both seasons.
Amazing return
At the end of the 2017 season, Jessica also faced a major health challenge, undergoing jaw surgery in early December to resolve frequent headaches that had plagued her for a couple of years.
Remarkably, upon her return to the Tour, at the Honda LPGA Thailand on another international leg in February, she led from start to finish, broke the tournament record with a 25-under-par total and won by four strokes.
“I can’t believe it, I was on autopilot, just trying to make birdies. I tried to relax, but I was nervous,” said Korda, who had started the tournament with no expectations, with the sole objective of getting her game back on track.
The Czech-American has yet to convert her stellar amateur performances and solid LPGA Tour career into Grand Slam success. Her best result so far has been a fourth-place finish at this year’s ANA Inspiration, a month after her victory in Thailand; with only two other top-10 results, at the 2013 U.S. Wokmen’s Open (seventh) and the 2014 Women’s British Open (fifth). The second major of the year, the U.S. Women’s Open, is played at the end of May.
After six tournaments on the 2018 LPGA Tour, Korda was sixth on both the Race to GME Globe and the money list and tenth in the Rolex World Rankings, having finished tenth, 26th, 24th and third in her other four appearances this season.
Successful family
Jessica Korda’s younger sister, Nelly (born July 28, 1998), began her professional career on the Symetra Tour. in 2016, won her first event at that year’s Great Life Challenge, finished ninth on the money list. earning her card to play the 2017 LPGA Tour, and completed her rookie year ranked 47th on the money list, with a best finish of fifth. Her brother Sebastian (born July 5, 2000) is the reigning junior champion on the Australian Open Tennis Championship, a victory that helped him climb to number one in the ITF junior rankings.
The caddy groom
During the third round of the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open, Jessica Korda and caddy Jason Gilroyed had several disagreements and she fired him after scoring five over par on the front nine. She then asked her boyfriend, professional golfer Johnny DelPrete, who was in the audience, to caddy for her for the remainder of the round. With DelPrete in charge of her bag of clubs she made one under par, and kept him on “payroll.” in the final round, finishing the tournament in seventh place.
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