World No. 1 Nelly Korda wasn’t exactly sharp off the tee during the first round of the Amundi Evian Championship in France. So much so that she hit just six fairways—tying for a career-low in a major round. Even more telling: She nearly hit her sister Jessica twice.
Jessica, who is on leave from professional golf after an injury and becoming a mom, was walking inside the ropes in her new side gig as an on-course reporter when she had to duck from cover from her sibiling’s drives. Jessica was assigned to follow the group of Nelly, former Evian winner Celine Boutier and Chisato Iwai.
Despite the trouble finding fairways off the tee, Nelly shot a four-under 67 to finish just two back of a group of five players tied for the lead with 65s. Thankfully for Nelly, her putter picked up the slack, as she needed just 28 putts in the round.
“She kept herself in it,” Jessica said on the broadcast, split between the Golf Channel and streaming on NBC Sports. “She’s just got to figure out that driver.”
Jessica joked on the broadcast that Nelly would be picking up the tab for dinner Thursday in France. After the round, Jessica—seeming a tad nervous—interviewed her sister.
“I was going to ask as well if it makes you nervous that I’m commentating on your group? You did almost hit me a couple times when you missed fairways today,” Jessica told her sister.
And Nelly joked back: “Maybe you should have stayed in the fairway, and I would’ve hit you.”
“No, I love having you out there. It’s nice. It’s like a little comfort blanket to have you out there. Hopefully, I have you for the rest of the week,” Nelly said.
In case Jessica had another assignment for the second round on Friday, she just got a nice endorsement to keep following her sister.
“Do you guys hear that? She wants me the rest of the week, so we have to adjust coverage based on that,” Jessica said.
Jessica joked she had to do some arm-twisting to get Nelly to stop by (which certainly wasn’t the case), and they had an insightful back-and-forth. Nelly was especially honest about her tee shots.
“Off the tee I would say it was like a ‘D.’ I didn’t drive it very well, especially with my driver, so I’m going to the range after,” Nelly said. “I’m going to FaceTime my coach, Jamie [Mulligan], and kind of figure out what was going on.
“I had two misses and that’s never good on a tight Evian golf course with the rough being pretty thick,” Nelly continued. “Putting as the day went on progressively got better. Around the greens was really good. I saved a couple up-and-downs especially, with having to pitch out. Overall, couple parts of my game helped me and rescued me, and the other parts let me down. That’s golf. Just going to try and figure it out on the range.”
Nelly is still searching for her first win in 2025 after seven victories a year ago. She’s off to a good start, even if she wasn’t hitting it straight most of the day.
At the end of the interview, Jessica signed off wishing her sister luck and telling her that her son—Nelly’s nephew—Greyson (18 months), would be excited to see her.
