The Draw: Nelly Korda Returns to World No. 1, Fitzpatrick Brothers With Life-changing Win

The Draw's host Nathan recaps a busy week in golf. Not only did Nelly Korda win her third major championship title, but she also returned to World No. 1 status. However, the LPGA Tour coverage started late Sunday, so we didn't get to see her complete dominance. Nathan also dives (no pun intended) into the tradition behind the plunge at Poppie's Pond and how it's evolved with The Chevron Championship's new venue.

On the PGA Tour, brothers Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick won the Zurich Classic team event, a life-changing result for Alex that secured his PGA Tour membership through 2028 and entry into key events. On the DP World Tour, Bernd Wiesberger won in Shanghai at the Volvo China Open for his ninth title, ending a winless stretch since 2021.

Nathan then previews the LPGA Tour's Riviera Maya Open at Mayakoba, the PGA Tour's Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral and the DP World Tour's Turkish Airlines Open. He also includes some special shout-outs to Stacy Lewis for retiring and Jim Furyk for being named the 2027 Ryder Cup captain. 

The Draw is a Fairway to Green podcast. See all episodes at www.fairwaytogreen.com.

Transcript

Nelly Korda Dominates at The Chevron Championship

Poppie's Pond Tradition

LPGA Coverage and Streaming Mishap

Fitzpatrick Brothers Win the Zurich Classic

What the Win Means for Alex Fitzpatrick and His PGA Tour Status

Bernd Wiesberger Ends Winless Drought

Preview and Picks: Riviera Maya Open at Mayakoba

Preview and Picks: Cadillac Championship

Preview and Picks: Turkish Airlines Open

Stacy Lewis Retires

Jim Furyk Named Ryder Cup Captain

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Hello, welcome back to the Draw A Fair Degreing Podcast. And boy, was it a fun week this past week in the world of golf. I mean, you had a major, you had brothers winnering, winning, you had someone on the DP World Tour breaking and win this drought for the first time in five years. But we have to start with the newly minted world number one, Nellie Corda. She picks up her third career major, and it was her tournament, start to finish. She won wire to wire. It was really never close after the first round. She absolutely blitzed the field. And again, doubt coming into it, she was playing great. She had the win. She had multiple second place finishes, but Gino's still here. Hannah Green's been the best player on Earth, men or women, the last two months with four wins coming into it. So there was a lot of hype around the major, it being the first one. And it delivered. Was it dramatic? No, because Nellie ran away. She ended up winning by five. She beat Running Yin and Patty Tavitanic by five strokes. She was at 18 under. And it was just an excellent display of golf. I mean, some of the stats from here. She made 23 birdies the whole week, the most of anyone in the field. She hit 59 of 72 greens in regulation. Again, just dominant type of performance. From now we can have the conversation. Is it Hannah Green or Nelly Corda? I'm going to go with Nellie Corda just because she's Nellie Corda. It's her 17th career win, and she has been great so far this year. I mean, she's now, like I said, back to number one in the world ranking. Gino moves to two. She has multiple victories in a season again. Getting to that third career major is just amazing. Her second career, Chevron. And I think it was in the final round where she's up by six heading into it. She never gave her competitors even a chance. I think it was something like she hit 12 of 13 fairways, or she only missed one fairway in the final round. If you're trying to close out a major, that's the way to do it. And boy, was it cool to see the plunge into that pool kind of off to the side. Now, I did hear that Tom Doak is coming into this golf course and putting a natural or a man-made pond in for the purpose of the plunge, so it's not just something they build every year. So that should be pretty cool from what I understand. They're going to make kind of a man-made pond lake running up the right side of the 18th fairway. So I think also make the golf course a little more difficult. So that'll be cool. But again, a cool tradition that I know a lot of the LPGA players were were wanting when they moved here uh last year, and they got the temporary pool to go into, but now with Tom Doe coming back in, putting in that, like that's pretty cool. Again, an excellent performance from Nelly. I mean, she has been just really good to start the year, and she was my pick going in. I know she hadn't won for a while since the Orlando event, but she's been playing so well with all those runner-up finishes that it just felt like it was gonna be her, and she proved to everyone like, yep, even though I didn't win last year at all, here I am, two wins already, multiple second places. So we're in for I think a great season. I think Gino will pick up another win or two, and there's nothing better for the game of golf when your star players play the best and perform. Just go ask the PJ Tour about Roy McElroy winning back-to-back masters and Scotty winning all those majors. Like if Nelly's winning and Gino's winning and they're competing against each other. I mean, that is great, especially for all the new broadcast stuff and all the TV rights that they have now. Again, didn't hate the coverage this week, thought it was pretty good. The one thing was that the coverage, the TV coverage starting late on Sunday, so you couldn't really see Nellie play. I think it was with like her first couple holes. So that's kind of a bummer that they'll have to work out because you'd like to see her from opening T-shot to when the final putt drops. But again, they got to compete with everything else. But I still would think that that's the one thing they'll try to fix is getting on air earlier so we can see the beginning of the final groups around. That that was wild that we couldn't really see it. And not even that you couldn't even see you couldn't even stream it anywhere. So the fact that you couldn't see on TV that stinks. But now that you have no streaming option either, I mean, what's 2026? We got to figure that out. We got to make sure we can see the leaders tee off to start their final round. But again, congrats to Nelly, an absolute dominant performance from the best women's player right now. As cool as that story was, and I that's gonna take the headline for the best story this week. We have to go over to the PJ Tour to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans New Orleans, where the only team event on the PJ Tour, two main teams, they play alternate shot, two days, best ball, two other days. And Alex Fitzpatrick and Matt Fitzpatrick win the brother combo, gets it done in their fourth appearance down in New Orleans at this event. Their previous finish was a T11 two years ago. And yes, we we can talk about Matt's Fitzpatrick. Brian and I did that last week. This is his third win of the PJ Tour season. It's his fourth in like the last seven months. He's absolutely just really good right now. He's probably the third best player behind Scotty and Rory. I think I'm gonna give it to him and not Cam Young right now. But again, if Cam Young goes and wins a couple times here, we have a maybe a little discussion. But right now, I think Matt Fitzpatrick, the way he's playing, he's kind of taken that third spot. But I I want to talk about Alex Fitzpatrick. Alex Fitzpatrick won a month ago on the DP World Tour for the first time, so he secured that status for the rest of the year. But with this win, he gets into all the remaining signature events of this season, the PJ Championship in a month, gets into the players next year, and has a tour card through 2028. I mean, that is literally life-changing for Alexis Patrick. Not that the DP World Tour is not a bad place to play. He would have had status and he's played well. So he could have maybe earned his PJ Tour card through the top 10 ranking on the race of the bye. But instead of that, he's accepted his PJ Tour membership. He's gonna be on the PJ Tour. He's in the field this week to get the Catalog Championship down in Miami. So again, really cool. And then to be able to clinch it with your brother, I there's probably no better feeling. I know Matt Fitzpatrick said it. Someone asked him in the press conference, where's this rank among wins? And he goes, This is probably right behind his major win at Brookline. I mean, to win with your brother is cool, but then to win and secure his PJ tour card and kind of lock him up for two and a half years, that's so cool. I mean, the best shot of the day. I mean, there are a lot of good shots, but Matt Fitzpatrick loves bunkers on the 72nd hole. I mean, go back to Brookline when he won his U.S. Open, hits that one out of the bunker, the fairway bunker, and makes uh Birdie or Parr to beat Zale Torres at the U.S. Open. And then here he had like a 35-yard bunker shot and just absolutely picks it clean and has almost side spin and stops on diamond and spins right and gets it to tap in range for his brother Alex for the win. And again, I thought it was funny after Alex said his his hands were shaking, he couldn't feel his legs, and the moment when they were hugging on the green. I mean, I have a younger brother to see that is it's just really cool. Again, I hope this isn't one of the tournaments that when they kind of remake their schedule, it goes away. I'm sure it's probably up there on the chopping block, but I think it's really cool. You you see different people win. Last year, Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak won for the first time on the PGA tour here. But again, Matt Fitzpatrick, Alex's Patrick, really cool story. Alex getting a PGA tour Cardin. I he'll play well. I mean, he may not compete this week at Miami, just it's gonna be tough to kind of calm down and get all that adrenaline. But it's a tough golf course. But for him, that's great. Gets him into a major in two weeks. Again, great stuff. Matt Fitzpatrick not in the field this week. He's taking a week off, and then we'll probably see him down at the Drewers Championship at Coral Hollow. Over on the DP World Tour, Bernd Weisbeiger clinched his ninth career title over in Shanghai. He hasn't won on the DP World Tour since 2021. Since 2021, and since his last victory, he's played on a Ryder Cup team. He got all the way up to 21st in the world at one point and just has been just okay the last five years. And for him to come out, he played a pretty steady round on the front nine and then the back nine. He took advantage of his playing partners and mistakes, and he ends up shooting three under on the back nine, wins by three. And again, just like we were talking about with Alex Fitzpatrick, he him saying it kind of gives him security for the rest of the year. He's into the Rolex series events on the DP World Tour, which is like their signature events. He gets him moved up. I think he moved up to 16th in the race to the bye ranking. So if he can continue to play well, get into that top 10. Now that Alex Fitzpatrick is out of there, that's one less spot that someone is taking. If he can get him to the top 10, get into that PJ tour, get a card, that'd be great. He has, I think it's 74 career starts on the PJ tour, but he's never had full status there. But again, good for Bernd Weisberger breaking that drought over there in China. This week we have a couple tournaments. We have the Cadillac Championship, we have the Turkish Airlines Open, and we have the Riviera Mayra open, Mayacoba down at the LPGA. We're gonna start with that event. It's at El Chameleon Golf Course at Mayacoba. If it sounds familiar, the PJ Tour used to play an event there. Live Golf has played an event there a couple years as well. This one, again, not the greatest field, but not the worst field. There are multiple LPG tour winners from this year in the field, or just one. Nellie, she's in the field. Kind of shocked. She's staying in. I'm not I'm kind of surprised she didn't withdraw after winning, but good for her keeping that commitment. She'll be the clear favorite coming off a win and just how well she's played. We have 21 out of the 28 LPJ tour rookies in the field. So again, not the craziest event, but again, it's a nice golf course. Not the most hard golf course at all. My pick for the win. It's it's tough not to pick Nellie, but I'm not going to. I am going to pick Lynn Grant. She's won two times the LPJ tour. She's ranked 37th in the world right now. But again, she's won recently in the last couple months. I think it was the last seven months she won. So again, Lynn Grant is my pick to win down in Mexico for the LPJ tour event. Over on the PJ Tour event, we have the Cadillac Championship, which is a new event. It is a signature event played at Trump National Derail, the Blue Monster Course. It is the first time hosting event at this course in 10 years. It used to hold used to host the WGC Cadillac Championship for 10 years. And then in 2016, that event was moved and hasn't hosted an event for 10 years. It's a tough golf course. It's a long golf course. It's like 7,700 yards. So it's going to be one of the longer golf courses on the PJ Tour schedule. It's again, Live Golf has had two events there the last two years. I don't, they're not playing there this year, but the Calic Championship, Cadillac returns as a sponsor for the first time in 10 years as well. So that's cool. Again, another signature event. I don't love the way the PJ Tour has done their schedule recently. You had the Masters, and then you had the Senior Event, the RBC Heritage, then you had last week, which is a team event, then you can go this week the Cadillac Championship, next week the Truest Championship, which is another signature event. And there's also the one flight Myrtle Beach, which is like an opposite field event. So it's just tough. If you're not in the signature events, if you weren't in the Masters, the last time you really played a normal event was down in Houston. Again, that's tough. Again, how many people are going to go play the Zurich this week? Who knows? But and then you have the opposite field next week. So if you weren't in signature events, like you have a long break without really a real just normal stroke play tournament. So I don't love back-to-back signature events on a PJ tour because you go signature event, signature event, and then right after that you have the PJ Championship. So it's really like three signature events in a row. If you're not in the major, it's tough if you're not in these two signature events. So I don't love them and how they did this schedule. I know Brian Rolak talked earlier in the year at the players, how they're going to rearrange the schedule and all that. I'm hoping they kind of spread the signature events out just to give more players a chance. And then you'll see more players in. Like this week, Rory McRoy isn't playing in the championship. Fitzpatrick isn't playing in the championship. Those are the number two and three players in the world. There's another top ten player in the world not playing. I think can't think of his name off the top of my head. But again, when they're not playing in this event, it kind of takes away from it. So I would like them to spread them out, get the players playing more. My pick this week is Cameron Young. It's a long golf golf course, like I said. You're going to need to hit fairways. You need to be in the fairway. It's the greens are tough. He's a good putter. It just it screams Cam Young. It's just he's played really well. He hasn't played since the RBC Heritage, so he's rested. He gets a week off kind of decompressed and all that from his master's run and the RBC Herriage. So I think Cam Young wins for the second time this year on the PJ tour. The last tournament we're going to talk about is the Turkish Airlines Open over on the DP World Tour. It's their second year back. It's been an event since 2013, but took a five-year hiatus. Came back last year when Martin Corvere of France won. He beat Jorge Campiglio and Hautong Lee by two to win his first event or first career title. Not the worst field. It's a pretty good field. There's a lot of winners from this year in the field. You got Jaden Shaper, David Puig, Nacho Elvira, Dan Bradbury, Freddie Scott, Jordan Gumber, all in the field who have won this year on the DP World Tour. And then you throw in Francesco Molinari and some other good players. It's a golf course designed by or partly designed by David Faraday. And most people say, most golfers say this is the best course he's designed. He's designed a couple other ones, but this one is the best one out in Turkey. My pick for this year, for this tournament is David Puig. I mentioned him earlier. He's played five events on the DP World Tour over the last couple months, you know, because he's a live golfer. In three of those, though, he's finished top three, including a win. And he's also played well in Live. Again, he's a young Spaniard golfer coming up, just like my pick last week, Eugenio Chichar, who didn't do too well. But again, David Puig is really good. And that's one if Liv does fold, I'd love to see him on the PJ Tour, DP World Tour, because I I think he's really good from what I've seen from him. Again, so he's my pick this week at the DP World Tour event. Two things before we go, just a little couple quick shout-outs. Stacy Lewis is retiring from the LPGA. There was a great moment once she finished on her round on Friday. They her dad came out on the bag for her last hole. Her husband let her dad do it. That was really cool. Her daughter was out there, gave her a hug, they gave her flowers. 13 LPG tour wins, two major wins, pretty good Soul Line Cup player. She's also the captain. She was the winning captain in 2023 and 2024. So really good career. Just it's sad to see such a good golfer go, but she's having her second kid and deciding to hang up the clubs. But again, congrats, Stacey Lewis. Great career. The other shout-out I want to give before we log off is Jim Furick. Jim Furick was named the Ryder Cup captain for the 2027 Ryder Cup over at Adair Mare. And if I don't sound too excited, I'm sorry. I just I don't love it. And I know the rumors were, well, it's Tigers, but then everything happened with his heat DWI, and that was immediately he's not going to be the captain anymore. I don't know who would have been a better pick. I think I maybe would have picked Steve Stricker because he's won a Ryder Cup. Jim Fuhrer, last time he was the captain of the Ryder Cup. They lost at Lake Golf Nationale in France. I think it was 2017. He was the winning President's Cup captain last year in Montreal for the USA team. So he was in the he was an assistant captain at the Ryder Cup this past year at Beth Page. He has experience. He's played on the PG tour with a lot of these guys, and he knows a lot of these guys. So I understand where they're going with that. I just I don't know. Again, I I don't know what the better pick was. I don't I didn't think Keegan was the right pick either two years ago when they decided him. It was almost like he they picked him because they felt bad he was not a captain's pick. So I think in that essence, I'd like I like Jim Fuhrer a little more because I think he'll go back to kind of a Steve Stricker mentality, a Paul Azinger mentality where he'll learn from his mistakes, he'll learn from his captain's picks. I think they need to get more into statistics. I know Eduardo Molinari is the stats guru for the European team. There needs to be someone on the USA team that does that for them and helps them with pairing, helps them with obviously they can't control the golf course because it's over in Europe, so that's in their hands. But with the pairings and who to put out when and what players to pair, and when they are paired, like they need to play on these holes and not these holes. Like that's another thing. Like we can talk about pairings, but if they're playing the wrong holes, then the pairings don't really matter. So again, Jim Fuhrer is not wouldn't have been my first pick. I think my first pick would have been Steve Stricker. Maybe they went to him and he said no. I I don't know the answer to that. But again, I think maybe he can't really do that much worse than what he did in France. As long as his captain's picks are better, he didn't pick the great ones. It is a little interesting, though, there was some drama with Patrick Reed and Jordan Speath at that Ryder Cup, and the way Patrick Reed's played this year in the majors recently, like he could be, I don't know if he'll qualify for a pick next year, but he's playing himself into our captain's pick conversation. So that'll be an interesting one that Fuhrk will have to deal with as well. But again, we're a year and a half out. A lot can change, a lot of players can change, the rankings will change. It'll be interesting who he has as assistants. I think that'll be a big thing. You gotta think someone like Brent Seneca will be assistant, he's the president's cup team for the U.S. this year. If he's successful and he is probably gonna be an assistant captain next year on the Ryder Cup team, I wouldn't be shocked that if he's the head captain in the Ryder Cup in in three years when it's here again in the U.S., Kevin Kisner always will be one of the choices. And then do you go with Gary Woodland, Webb Simpson? He's one of major. He's been in Ryder Cup, so he'll probably be an assistant captain. Do you go back to Keegan? Do you bring Keegan? And at this point, you probably don't bring Keegan. He isn't playing his best right now. So I do feel bad for Keegan. I think his last chance to really make a Ryder Cup team was his past year in Beth Page. But you never know again. It's a year and a half out. Jim Furick, we'll see. Not the most rah-rah, like exciting guy, but if you have the right players, I don't think you need the most vocal captain. If if you have a a JT in that room or a Bryson in that room, or or some other kind of hyped up rah-rah guys, I don't think you need one. So I think Jim Furick will be good in that where he can be kind of the calm, calming presence. And as long as he does good captains pick and and they start leaning into stats more and pairings better, I think they could have a shot, but it's it's gonna be tough to beat that team. Luke Donald being the captain the third time. You gotta assume nine or ten of those guys from the last two Ryder Cups are gonna be back in fold. I I don't know at this point who you could probably guess. Maybe one of the Ho Guards is off and one of the older guys kind of tallies off. But again, Roy McElroy won another masters, Justin Rose just blitzed the field down at Tory Pine. So it it may it could be the same 12, or maybe one or two new guys sneak in. We don't know. But it's gonna be a tall task for the Americans no matter what. So even if they would have gone with a really good pick, like let's say nothing happened to Tiger. I don't know if Tiger really would have been a good choice either. Um, but again, PJ Tour or not the PJ Tour, the Ryder Cup, they're picking Jim Farrick as their captain. Again, we'll see. We have a year and a half. So I can't judge anything yet. This week, again, like I said, busy week in the golf world. Go check out the tournaments. Go check us out. Read us on FaradaGreen.com. Follow us on our social media, Faraday Green. And just keep a lookout for anything we post on social media and all the recaps and preview articles that we have on our website. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Enjoy the golf.