Analyst claims Nelly Korda battling self-imposed pressure and rising expectations amid slow start

Nelly Korda finished two under at the Chevron Championship. It was a respectable score, finishing five shy of the lead, which is even more impressive, considering the fact that she shot poorly in the first round. Still, it was another good but not great performance.

The World No. 1 has endured a lot of those this year. She has yet to win, only once finishing in the top five this year. It's been a slow start, especially after a historic season, including a major win, last season.

Golf insider Amy Rogers speculated that she might be putting too much pressure on herself. She revealed her thoughts on the Golf Podcast with Rex & Lav:

"I think if we look at at her results so far obviously it has not been the start to the year that we expected to see from Nelly Korda. But I think therein lies the problem, the expectations. Not only the expectations that the media and the fans have after what she did last year and winning seven times, but also the expectations and the pressure that then she has put on herself."

Rogers said that Korda admitted to reading everything that was out there about her, so she's "very aware" of how she's being covered and what's being said about her in the media.

The analyst continued:

"They have to go into the media center and answer these questions in a press conference and we're asking them what's going on and why they're not winning and those things and I was like 'how do you block this out then when you leave how do you shut that out and try to you know just block out any of the chatter?'"

Korda does "stay in her bubble," where coaches and others don't talk about golf, but Rogers believed that the pressure that Korda was putting on herself and the pressure she's feeling from the outside was "unreasonable" for her to deal with.

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Golf insider compares Nelly Korda to Scottie Scheffler

On the LPGA Tour, the World No. 1 golfer has suffered a disappointing start to the season, fresh off a historic year. That includes a decent but not victorious finish at the first major of the year, where she was the defending champion.

The same thing has happened on the PGA Tour with Scottie Scheffler. Nelly Korda and Scheffler are experiencing similar woes, and Amy Rogers agreed with that.

Nelly Korda is struggling (Image via Imagn)

Rogers said on the podcast:

"You mentioned with Scottie Scheffler. I mean, how often do you see someone back up an incredible season like we saw from them last year with another one?"

Rogers also pointed to Korda's putting struggles:

"She could not buy a putt on the first round of this championship and I saw it last week when she was in LA when she switched to that blade putter she had multiple three putts over the course of the week, so she's been really struggling."

Nelly Korda did change her putter and had better success, but the golf analyst thought that there's a lot factoring into her difficult start to the season, just like Scheffler.