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via Reuters

via Reuters

While the male golfers are competing at the St Jude Championship, the female golfers are in the middle of their last major championship of the year, the AIG Women’s Open at the Walton Heath Old Course, just outside of London.

And among the top names vying for the prestige title, is American sweetheart Nelly Korda, who is hoping for a good result this weekend. But ahead of the tournament, Korda gave a clarification of how her recent controversial move affected her ongoing partnership with a $2 billion brand.

Putter changing performed a miracle for Nelly Korda

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After some months of back and forth of struggling on the green, last week Korda found a silver lining as she bounced back to the World No.1 rank for the fifth time in her career. This was a big boost for Korda who has also missed several events this year due to her health issues. But the reason behind this success was the wise decision of Korda of moving back to her old driver.

Two weeks ago she was performing at the Evian Championship and was using a Stealth 2. In the first two rounds, she finished with scores of 70 and 73. After that, she went back to her old TaylorMade Titleist TSR1 and quickly improved to 64 on the third day. This is a big and risky move Korda made the switch to TaylorMade earlier this year and signed a multi-year deal after getting out of a contract with Titleist. And this week also she is using her old putter at Walton.

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Korda who has been sponsored by TaylorMade used their products mostly but this move didn’t affect her current deal with them. During her pre-tournament session this week, Korda explained. “When I first started testing with TaylorMade, they reassured me that they want me to play what I will play best with, so I’ve been trying to kind of figure the driver out.’

She expressed that she is excited about some exciting plans that the brand is working on for her. “They have supported me through the entire process, but right now I’m just going to play with what I played best with and hopefully, you know, they have some exciting things in the work and I’m really excited for the future.” But will the change help her at the Women’s Open also?

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First round of the Women’s Open was a tough pickle for star golfers

The first round of the Women’s Open turned out to be a tough field even for the top golfers. While Korda made throughout the holes made four bogeys and three birdies. She finished the day with a one-over 73 and was sitting on T55 on the leaderboard. She was teamed with Charley Hull and Lydia Ko. While other big names like World no.2, Jin Young Ko have also done not better and made a similar finish of 73. And new Amundi Champion, France’s Celine Boutier ended with 74. Though Allisen Corpuz and Hyo Joo Kim made it under par.

USA Today via Reuters

Hopefully, the gear change move of Korda will also serve her at the Women’s Open just like it served her at the Amundi Evian Championship, two weeks ago. What do you think about Korda’s odds at the event? Let us know in the comments.

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