"Last year is last year": Nelly Korda shares her forward-thinking approach to the upcoming season

Last year, Nelly Korda dominated the LPGA Tour. This year, she'll be the top player that everyone's attempting to dethrone. She's the World No. 1, the Player of the Year, and the defending champion at a lot of events, including the Chevron Championship.

Korda isn't focusing on last year, though. With the LPGA Tour season beginning on January 30, the American has her eyes firmly forward and not on the past. Her focus is on succeeding in the present and the future, not what she was able to accomplish in the past. She also believes that past success isn't an indicator of future success even at an individual tournament.

Korda said (3:13 onwards):

"I mean last year is last year. When it comes to defending titles, I mean the field's different. There's different girls in the field, the weather's different. The golf course could be different, so there's so many variabilities that go into the game of golf when you're defending that just completely changes it."

Korda said she tries not to take the approach of defending anything, but instead focuses on things as a new challenge every single time. That goes for the season as a whole as well as individual events that the young golfer will try to win again.

2025 will bring a lot of new challenges. These may be challenges Korda has faced and defeated before, but she will not treat them as such. They will all be like new and give her another chance to continue winning.

---

Nelly Korda addresses Met Gala look

2024 was the year of Nelly Korda both on and off the course. She dominated golf on the course, winning seven times which included a stretch of five consecutive titles. Off the course, she was raising her own profile and that of the sport.

Nelly Korda at the Met Gala in 2024 (Image via Getty)

That culminated in a trip to the Met Gala for Korda, an honor the biggest celebrities in the world get to enjoy. She said via the LPGA Tour:

“It was really, really neat to step outside of my comfort zone and do something like that. That was my first time ever walking a red carpet, and I went out with a bang. I think it's downhill from here. But it was such a neat experience, and I'm just so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that.”

Nelly Korda has gone viral several times for her outfits. She often posts to Instagram and excites fans and followers with her unique style, so she was a fit for the Met.

She might not have been a celebrity in the same sense that Zendaya, Bad Bunny, Gigi Hadid and others were at the event, but she showed up and starred in her own way.