When the big tournaments are over, time is running out for the winner. As family and friends walk across the 18th green with hugs, photos and a trophy presentation, the pressure and plans melt away.
However, for the runners-up there may be time Hurry up.
From the moment Nelly Korda rounded the cup on Riviera’s 18th green and fell in, less than five minutes before Gaby Lopez sat on social media, answering two reporters’ questions about her second-place finish. His partner, Charley Hull, was sitting in the back of the room, fiddling with his phone anxiously, ready to get out of this place. Did he have to hold on to accept the second place award? That’s what his team is wondering.
Lopez and Hull showed very different situations. Hull was frustrated. All that second? Lopez was happy.
“I feel amazing,” she said. “I’m not disappointed at all.”
Lopez had never been around, and it showed. Hull now have five senior runners-up; on Instagram she also called herself “a bride again.”
It was an interesting combination but witnessed by few. Our collective gaze was focused on Team Korda’s photo on the 18th green. Hull is 30 and Lopez is 32, and the entire golf world expects the former to win major points before the latter — everyone, that is, but Lopez himself, who seems to be chasing the lead and nothing else.
He checked in with his countrywoman, two-time winner Lorena Ochoa, for advice on how to win the game’s biggest events. He removed the start of the culture from his summer program, in part because of the grass species. If the next major is in bentgrass, it doesn’t want to prepare in poa. For now, whenever Lopez’s juices prompt him to do so play more, his physio shuts him down.
“For now, let’s be smart,” that coach, Aaron Bond, told Lopez this year. “Let’s focus on what you want to achieve. At the end of the day, let’s put ourselves in a position to score in the back 9 on Sunday.”
It might look like a draft, but at Riviera it worked, until the 70th hole of the tournament, anyway. On the 16th green, Korda had 21 feet for birdie, on the same line as Lopez, who had 28 feet. Korda took two sweets to get his ball in the hole; Lopez needed three.
That decisive bogey at the US Open will keep most players awake at night. But Lopez, who has had three more bites in the big apple this season, sees only the positive.
“I don’t regret a single thing,” he said. “I’m happy. I’m proud … We have to be a little stronger in a few weeks and hopefully one day it’s our turn.”
3 things I think
1. New beginnings? On the topic of Riv, I heard rumors that its famous tee might be gone i First Olympic Games in two years. The problem? It is so close to the clubhouse that it creates a difficult flow of spectators and does not allow any large fields behind it. If this happens, I would suggest the 3rd tee as another option.
2. Doonbeg or bust. President Trump’s presence at this week’s NBA Finals in New York was a reminder that I was told he intends to attend the DP World Tour’s Irish Open at his Doonbeg course this fall. His plan may change, of course, but Trump love to see his subjects lead the good. To do so in another country would make a great spectacle.
3. Nelly doesn’t know anything. Korda confirmed at the Riv what we knew last week: He’s playing the best golf of his life. DataGolf’s advanced stats rate his 2026 performance as a full shot better, on average, than his 2024 season, when he won five times in six starts. Like Scottie Scheffler, Korda somehow keeps raising the bar.
