Two days before the Chevron Championship began, Nelly Korda was found with a hoop and a basketball instead of her golf kit. “Any pointers?” wrote Korda, tagging Caitlin Clark and LeBron James, to which Clark replied, “Banking everything, love it 😂😂.” James pitched in by writing, “Looks like you got it all handled!!” The basketball turned out to be a magical precursor to one of Korda’s most important tournaments, as Clark has tipped her hat to the Chevron Championship winner.
If you know little about golf, the Chevron Championship is one of the LPGA Tour’s five major championships. And Nelly Korda dominated, she equaled the event’s 54-hole scoring record on Saturday but fell two shots short of the tournament record of 20 under par in her 5-shot victory. With this win, Korda returned to the top of the world rankings and got her second Chevron title in three seasons. With one of Clark’s buddies in the golf world taking home such a major title, Clark sent a clear recognition for Korda.
The Indiana Fever super reposted Nelly Korda’s final shot at the tournament. A post by the LPGA was captioned, “She does it again 🙌 The winning moment for 3x major champion, Nelly Korda.” There was no caption as such from Clark but it was a quiet acknowledgement of Korda’s win. Clark and Korda have been friends ever since the basketball star tried her hand at golf in the Annika-Pro-Am. She went up against Korda in one of those appearances with the pro golfer guiding her.
“It’s really fun to see her do her craft up close and how good she is. She just makes the game of golf look really easy. You’re almost like, how? But she’s great and I’m rooting for her to win,” Clark said during her round with Korda in November last year. Korda even gifted Clark her designed Nike shoes.
Both are expected to be back at the Annika Pro-Am this year as well. While Clark follows along with golf, she has a task on her hands in getting to No. 1 herself. Despite a rather mediocre outing to start the preseason, a positive thing to take from her game against the Liberty. It was her chemistry with a new signee.
Caitlin Clark returned for the Indiana Fever after almost 10 months. Her injury-ridden 2025 meant she played only 13 games in a stop-start season. However, things looked rosy when Clark won the MVP at the Team USA Qualifiers. Her WNBA return was not the same. Clark had 7 points while going 2-10 from the field and 1-5 from the three-point line. Yet, there was a silver lining from this game, which showed glimpses of what could be a franchise-defining partnership.
“What stands out to me about Caitlin Clark’s play was she looked fast when she was pushing the ball in transition. She looked strong,” Robin Lundberg of SI said. “And most importantly, when she played with Monique Billings, that is going to be a feast. They are going to kill. They are going to crush. They’ve just got such natural innate chemistry and Billings screens in a way I cannot overstate how big her screening is going to be.”
Clark struggled to get open looks in this game, but almost everytime she did, it was after a Billings screen. She also had 4 assists and 3 rebounds and billings was a very important outlet for Clark. So, her screen either gives Clark a relatively easy shot. She is already being picked up full court even during preseason games. Or Clark can find a cutting Billings for a layup. This is going to be an important factor for Clark to get her shot back. She shot 27.9% from the three-point line last year. The Indiana Fever hedge on Clark to find her form if they are to contend for the title.
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