A deep dive into how TaylorMade fit Nelly Korda
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What golf clubs does Nelly Korda use? We take a look at what’s in the bag of the two-time Major winner, Olympic champion, and women’s World No.1.
In her eight years on the LPGA Tour, Nelly Korda has 60 career top-10 finishes and is now a thirteen-time winner on the LPGA Tour including the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and her most recent victory at the 2024 Chevron Championship which made her a two-time Major Champion.
The World No.1’s win at the first Major of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, was her fifth-straight victory on the LPGA Tour, becoming the first person to win five consecutive starts since Annika Sorenstam in 2004-2005. Korda joins the Swede superstar and Nacy Lopez (1978) as the only players on the LPGA Tour to win five consecutive competitions.
The American became a major champion back in 2021 winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club, where Korda won by three strokes over Lizette Salas after shooting 68 in the final round.
Korda won golf’s Olympic gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 becoming only the second woman in history to reach this feat as she edged her way to a one-shot victory over Mone Inami and Lydia Ko who claimed Silver and Bronze.
Nelly has the edge over older sister Jessica Korda, who has six LPGA titles and is still searching for her first major. Both sisters played together in the 2019 and 2021 Solheim Cup teams.
Nelly Korda has signed a multi-year deal with TaylorMade to play a full bag of their equipment, including their TP5x ball. She’s continuing to test TaylorMade’s equipment to get the perfect bag, but the World No.1 obviously feels more comfortable with a Scotty Cameron putter that’s made its way into her bag.
“I signed with TaylorMade because of their proven ability to elevate the game of the best golfers in the world,” Korda said. “It is clear that they share my passion for working as hard as possible to be in the best position to win. I’m thrilled to be a part of Team TaylorMade.”
Korda joined TaylorMade just a few days after signing a deal with Nike Golf to wear the brand’s apparel and shoes.
Let’s take an in-depth look at Nelly Korda’s golf bag for 2024.
What’s In The Bag: Nelly Korda
What driver does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses a TaylorMade Qi10 Max Driver (10°) with a Mitsubishi GT 60 S Shaft
About a month after the initial visit, the tour team went back to test more in depth with Nelly and dialed in her Mitsubishi GT 60 S shaft. The team made a tipping adjustment to her shaft that allowed Nelly to turn it over a little bit easier and have the control she was looking for. They also adjusted the backweight on her Max head to be lighter to bring the spin down and promote the draw even more. All in all, it took two to three iterations of the original head they tested in June to find the perfect build for Nelly.
“As we look to create new shapes in our driver heads, we found something with the shape of the Qi10 Max that was a little deeper front to back and a slightly more heel ward center of gravity. She instantly set that club down and loved the way it looked. Nelly was able to start the ball on her intended line and loved seeing the ball fall left and be able to move it how she wanted in addition to hitting different flights and windows. She also notices on mis-hits that the spin stays really consistent. The window it takes off on is great and the shot shape is very repeatable for her." Ryan Ressa, TaylorMade Senior Tour Manager
What fairway wood does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses a TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway wood (15° and 21°)
Best for high launching
TaylorMade like to refer to them as their cheat code, so long as you don’t find launching modern fairways from the deck a challenge, they’ll be one of the longest and most forgiving fairway woods available in 2023.
Thanks to lowering the center of gravity inside the Stealth 2 head, the high CT area is more aligned with where golfers impact shots when hitting from the turf. The idea is simple but it means shots are easier to flight, with additional speed. TaylorMade have achieved it by reducing face and crown height by 2mm and positioning sizeable internal mass towards the rear of the head.
Read our full TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods review.
Pros
- Low center of gravity enabling a high launch
- Easy to align with target
- Will appeal to all players with reasonable swing speeds
Cons
- No adjustable hosel but multiple loft options
| Lofts | 3W - 15° / 3W HL - 16.5° / 5W - 18° / 7W - 21° / 9W - 24° |
| Stock shafts | Fujikura Ventus Red TR |
| Adjustable hosel | No |
What irons does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses TaylorMade P770 irons (5) and TaylorMade P7MC irons (6-PW)
In our test, the TaylorMade P770 produced a ball speed 0.8 mph faster than the same loft P7MC. Shots launched higher and the ball hit the green at a steeper angle, whilst also adding 3 yards of additional carry distance.
Read our full TaylorMade P770 iron review.
Pros
- High launch
- Good distance for the loft
- Hold greens brilliantly
Cons
- Slot and screw detract from looks
| Stock shaft | KBS Tour |
| 7-Iron loft | 34° |
| Forgiveness rating | 2 - 2.5/5 |
What wedges does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses TaylorMade MG4 Wedges (50° SB.09°, 54° SB.11°)<br><br>
Best blade golf wedge
Pros
- Beautiful looks
- Very high spin rate
- Extremely consistent distances
Cons
- Less forgiving than cavity backs
| Lofts: | 46° / 50° / 52° / 54° / 56° / 58° / 60° |
| Grind options: | Standard Bounce, Low Bounce, High Bounce, Tiger Grind |
| Finishes: | Satin Chrome, Satin Black |
| Stock shaft: | True Temper Tour Issue S200 |
What putter does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses a Titleist Scotty Cameron Tour Prototype putter
The Scotty Cameron putter closest to the one played by Korda is the Super Select Squareback 2. This is a wider blade than the Olson putter Korda was wielding for some time - the same one previously used by the men's World No.1 Scottie Scheffler.
Read our full Scotty Cameron Super Select Squareback 2 putter review.
| Style | Blade |
| Length options | Bespoke |
| Stock grips | Bespoke |
What golf ball does Nelly Korda use?
Nelly Korda uses a TaylorMade TP5x golf ball
Best tour standard distance golf balls
Read our full TaylorMade TP5x golf ball review
Pros
- More penetrating flight than the previous model
- Long distance for quicker swing speeds
- Exceptional spin and control around the greens
- Premium feel off every club
Cons
- Urethane cover not the most durable
| Construction | 5-piece |
| Cover | Cast urethane |
| Compression | TP5 - 87 | TP5x - 97 |
| Dimples | 322 |
| Feel | TP5 - very soft | TP5x - soft |
| Flight | TP5 - mid-high | TP5x - high |
| Long game spin | Low |
| Short game spin | TP5 - very high | TP5x - high |
| Color options | White; Yellow |
| Alternative models | TP5 Pix; TP5x Pix |
- New seamless tour flight dimple pattern
- Speed-layer system
- High-flex material
How does TaylorMade fit Nelly Korda?
TaylorMade’s Senior Tour Manager, Ryan Ressa gave us a deep dive into how the world number one sets up her bag.
I didn’t really cross paths with Nelly other than a couple of US Opens when she was 12 or 13 years old.
Wind the clock forward to 2022 when TaylorMade was trying to sign her and I was tasked with going to her home course in Bradenton, Florida to develop an equipment relationship between her, her team, and the brand. She had a full bag of equipment that wasn’t TaylorMade so we had to do our best to focus on key products.
Working on 14 new golf clubs plus a golf ball takes a lot of time.
Nelly likes doing lots of her testing at home away from the tour, at the start of 2023 when she first signed for TaylorMade I traveled to Florida every couple of weeks to give her as much time as she needed leading into the new season. We wanted to focus on Carbonwoods, irons, and golf ball before exploring wedges and putters. The process was much more intense in 2023 than it has been in 2024.
Over the last 18 months, I’ve learned what she needs and likes to see and feel in her equipment. It’s a collaborative effort, her coach and caddy will be there too.
Fitting Nelly Korda for a driver
Nelly’s delivery means she likes to square the driver up really easy.
In 2023 she played the Stealth 2 HD (the only TaylorMade Staffer to use a draw driver), she hit it very straight and could draw shots with it, but her miss was the opposite of what she wanted, and she hates a right-sided miss. She would rather miss way left than be 2 yards right. It didn’t take too long to realize we needed to change the profile of our head to better suit her delivery.
She was really excited, after the first couple of shots she said “I think we have it”.
I don’t want to say it was an epiphany, but developing a more heel-biased driver profile was a home run not just for her but for the majority of golfers, as our R&D team created a club that squares up really easily at impact. I took the first Qi10 Max prototypes to her in June 2023, and as soon as she sat it down she loved the profile. The profile appears a little shallower because of the bigger footprint, even though it’s not.
Let’s see how things go, it’s very early days.
At that initial session I played it down a bit, I suggested giving things some time as she’d only just seen the prototype. Incredibly she has stuck with that original product, she had to keep it under wraps in her garage for five months until we could let her take the driver out on the golf course in November 2023.
She’s now just won five events in a row, including the first women’s major of 2024 with her Qi10 Max. It’s been a process getting here but she’s one of our top priorities, and working with new players always takes time.
We were on a quest for a high MOI driver, Nelly Korda helped us on that journey.
We get lots of player feedback and talk tons about future products and we want input from all types of golfers. We knew we could have created her a really good driver, possibly an 8 or 9 out of 10 with our typical TaylorMade profile but a new shape was part of the process of creating something for her and the mass market of golfers. As soon as we gave it to her she was like “Right, let’s go”.
It was a group effort across the board, but we knew the new shape would perform better for her and suit her eye. Now she’s happy with her equipment we can get out of the way, we don’t need to be there every week. This year we’re not working through 14 club changes and a golf ball, the better we know the player the easier the process becomes.
She wanted to shave a touch of spin off her driver in Las Vegas, yet she’d just won three events in a row.
Once Nelly’s bag is set she will stick with equipment that she likes and doesn’t feel the need to change anything. That’s a trait of great players, they show up to events ready to go, they’re not searching week to week to find something different.
In Las Vegas I had a few clubs for her, we let her have a few hits before taking them out of her hands as we (her team and me) could see hers was better. Tour athletes are always asking “How can I make this 1% better?” Right now, Nelly is playing the best golf of her career, the work we put in last year has paid off. At times we need to work with the coach and say “This is a confidence builder, she needs to trust she’s doing the right things”.
Fitting Nelly Korda for fairway woods
It’s almost like superstition when she finds clubs she loves.
We haven’t done too much testing with the new Qi10 fairway woods as her current Stealth 2 three and seven wood are favorites for her. When we hit the Qi10 it launched a little higher, spun a little less, and went a fraction further but she’s super confident with her current models, and when they’re winning five tournaments in a row you should not be touching any player’s golf bag. She loves to hit a high towering draw with fairway woods and she’s really consistent with them.
It’s the exact numbers, the consistency, the ability to take them off different lies, a lot also comes down to head shape.
I’ve seen her hit three fairway woods into par 5’s in the last week and they have been perfect shots, the Stealth three and seven wood allow her to do everything she needs. It’s very important the shape of the fairway wood fits her eye, but I always fight the old adage that it’s tough to replace fairway woods as the Qi10 brings additional benefits in terms of forgiveness, and the launch conditions are great.
We want players winning tournaments but I always carry a few clubs under my arm just in case, when players hit a certain club poorly over a couple of weeks there may be an opportunity for you.
There hasn’t been a tour event in 18 months where she’s turned up and asked to add something to her armory.
For the Open Championship at St Andrews in 2024 we may look to lower a fairway wood loft to flight a three-wood for those conditions, but she just doesn’t tinker with her bag at events. She doesn’t change her fairway wood set-up from week to week like some players do depending on the golf course. That’s the only club we’ve talked about having something specific for a certain week of the year in the 18 months we’ve worked together.
Fitting Nelly Korda for a hybrid
I’ve not touched the hybrid…yet.
You have to understand the relationship is so important, it’s not about having everything across the board in the bag right away. I couldn’t go in at the start of January 2023 when she first signed and say “Right your favorite club isn’t a TaylorMade we’ve got to work on that”, I need the player to trust me and understand I have their best interests at heart. Trust is the most important part of this job, and trust comes through them succeeding. At times we have to remove ourselves from the situation and be there to assist in any way we can.
“Ok let’s try some hybrids”, the following day she changed her mind.
Pretty much every shot Nelly hits with her hybrid ends up five feet or less from the pin, I watched her in a team event in December 2022 before she signed and saw her hit hybrid four times, each resulting in a tap in birdie or better. During a test session last year she wanted to look at hybrids one afternoon, it was a three-hour window, the following day though she had changed her mind.
The time will come when that hybrid needs replacing, it just hasn’t happened in the first year and a half of us working together.
Fitting Nelly Korda for irons
Where’s your biggest weakness?
When players first join us we have to find out lots about their game quickly, so we asked Nelly where she felt she could improve. She replied “I just can’t hit my 5 and 6 iron high enough” and those are the clubs she hits lots of shots with into Par 5’s. On tough tour courses if shots come in a little shallow, with not enough spin they don’t stop, so the P770’s were the first TaylorMade clubs she hit.
From 180 to 200 yards out we could see immediately shot height was up by 20 feet, spin increased and the landing angle improved, she wanted to play the set straight away, but we had to say not yet, as they hadn’t quite been released.
Nelly has picked up speed since we first met in January 2023.
She’s very dedicated in the gym and works on her fitness and flexibility, she will warm up for an hour with a gym trainer and warm down late at night once she’s finished. During her injury lay-off she got stronger so late last year (2023) she wanted to hit the P7MC 6-iron to see if she was able to hit it hard enough to generate enough spin to produce the same flight as the P770. She could, so she switched and now plays P7MC from PW to 6-iron with a P770 5-iron.
The P770 5-iron is lethal.
It’s a lot like her hybrid, she can hit it high and long, which are the benefits that really stand out for her with this iron. We tried the P7MC 5-iron but it just comes out a little flatter which means from the distance she hits it from shots run through the green. The P770 are designed to go higher and come in soft which is perfect for Nelly in this area of the bag, they’ve added a little distance too.
The P7MC goes through the turf better for elite players bearing in mind the variety of shots they hit.
At the start of 2023 Nelly had a full set of hollow body P770 irons in her bag, she played them for two weeks. She was curious about whether she could get the same ball flight with the P7MC, which led to her feeling the slightly thinner sole of the MC was a better fit for the different conditions she would play in around the world. She could hit all of her numbers with the MCs and have that extra degree of versatility, especially as she likes hitting lots of three-quarter shots, where the flight control is slightly better.
This set is perfect.
We put in hours and hours working with players as they all want that extra 1%, they’re all on a quest for perfection, with Nelly it’s paid off as she’s now completely comfortable with her equipment. With her now settled we’ve just produced exact replica back-up sets. They’re positioned around the world, one set lives with her family in Prague, so when she travels for the Scottish and British Open’s, plus the Olympics if her clubs go missing we have exact replicas waiting for her.
All of her irons are exactly 400g each.
It’s a unique set-up for her, and it’s something we’ve dialed in over time so the clubs are all swing weighted but the overall weights match too. Early on a few of the irons were 4 or 5g lighter or heavier so we honed in on the irons she’s played best with over the years and matched everything up. It’s details like this that mean the world within the tour environment.
Is this new prototype 1% better?
I’m spending time with Nelly over the next couple of weeks so she can see some prototype irons. It’s absolutely not about getting these irons into her hands. At TaylorMade, we do tons of robot and player testing but the delivery of tour players is just not the same.
Effectively we’re using our tour staff to test for us so we can understand how potential new products might perform. We want to see if the product is 1% better, or if it has the potential to be 1% better, so when we look at irons in the fall we know whether the product could be something that might work for her.
Fitting Nelly Korda for wedges
The transition from Vokey wedges wasn’t easy but it wasn’t quite as tough as it could have been.
Nelly likes traditional-styled wedges so the Hi-Toe was never an option, she just flat-out preferred the look of the MG3 and now MG4. We didn’t need to take her previous wedges and completely match them.
The 50° needed some tinkering with the overall weight, and we nudged the loft down to 49° so she could hit her numbers perfectly. The 54° has a fraction more bounce than high bounce wedges, it also plays at 53° as Nelly likes her distances from 80 – 115 yards completely dialed in.
After the first couple of weeks in 2023, we fine-tuned how the soles went through the turf, since then it’s been a straightforward transition into the MG4s.
Fitting Nelly Korda for a putter
Nelly noticed Scottie Scheffler putted great at The Masters.
We’ve shown her Spider putters and future Spider concepts but for now, bigger MOI-style putters just don’t fit her eye. If that size and style don’t fit it’s always tough for a player to get over the hump with them, a little like we had with the driver.
Players are always interested in what others are doing though, it took Scottie a while to see the benefits, but it only takes them to work on alignment or roll with their coach where a different design highlights or compliments what they’re doing and an opportunity might arise.
Monday morning at the first major of 2024 is not the time to be pushing a new putter.
Nelly is on a super-hot run right now and while we’re working behind the scenes on putter ideas for her it’s not a product we want to push right now. It’s really hard with their schedule as you have windows that are dictated by the tour.
The women have four majors in the next four months, and we want her to perform in the way she has been. We will give Spider another look when the time is right, and even if she doesn’t use one of our current models we will ask what the perfect model looks like to her, as her feedback could shape a future design.
Fitting Nelly Korda for golf balls
“Can I go back to the drawing board on the golf ball?”
We put Nelly through a full golf ball fitting when she first joined us and from her preferences and data the TP5x stood out as a great fit. One of the things she wanted to improve on was a slightly lower ball flight as she felt like she played in a lot of windy conditions around the globe.
Just before the 2023 season kicked off though she switched to the TP5 as she wanted a softer feeling ball around the greens, following the Solheim Cup she came back around and wanted to flatten her ball flight out and lower it a little, so we’ve moved her back into the TP5x which is where she is today.
The first bounce did exactly as she wanted.
We got back around the greens to see if her short game delivery had changed and sure enough, she was spinning shots a fraction more. We’re talking from 20 yards here but the TP5x span a little less where the TP5 launched a fraction higher, so she felt like it was possible to create more speed with the TP5x which gave a more upright and softer first bounce, with less forward roll.
Instantly she knew that was what she was after, with her distances now dialed in she’s getting the ball flight she wanted and plenty of spin for coming into firm tour greens.
Nelly practices with the TP5x Pix.
She uses the TruePath graphics for help with alignment and roll feedback, and she used to have her lion logo printed on her tournament golf balls before finding a putting coach last year. They changed how she uses the logo of the ball for alignment, so we’re working with her on some new MySymbol models which she might be able to roll out in the summer, possibly around the Olympics.
Ironically she only plays #1 golf balls.
About the Author
Simon Daddow – Today’s Golfer Equipment Editor
Having tested and played more than 10,000 clubs in his life, what Simon doesn’t know about golf clubs isn’t worth knowing.
He’s a specialist in all things metal having spent a large part of his career as a golf club maker and product development manager, and has worked in the golf industry for more than 30 years.
He joined EMAP Active (now Bauer Media) as Equipment Editor in 2006 and has made todays-golfer.com the most reliable source for golf club testing.
You can contact Simon via email and follow him on Twitter for loads more golf equipment insight.
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Nelly Korda's What's in the bag.
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Jessica Korda congratulates younger sister Nelly on her KPMG PGA Championship win.
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Nelly Korda's 10th victory on the LPGA Tour came at the 2024 Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship
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Nelly Korda's 2024 Qi10 Golf Bag
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Nelly Korda uses the Titleist TSi1 driver.
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Nelly Korda has become the first golfer on the LPGA Tour to win from three consecutive starts since Nancy Lopez in 1978
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Nelly Korda has won four consecutive starts on the LPGA Tour becoming the first player to do so since Lorena Ochoa in 2008
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Nelly Korda uses a Titleist TSi1 and PXG Gen2 0317X hybrid.
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Nelly Korda uses Titleist T100 irons.
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Nelly Korda won her first Major at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship.
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Nelly Korda won the 2024 LPGA Drive On Championship
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Nelly Korda won Olympic Golf gold for USA at Tokyo 2020.
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Nelly Korda with the Pelican's Women's Championship trophy, her 7th LPGA Tour title.
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Nelly Korda is currently putting with a Scotty Cameron Tour Prototype Putter
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Nelly Korda is currently putting with a Scotty Cameron Tour Prototype Putter
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Nelly Korda uses the Scotty Cameron Tour Newport 2.5 putter and TaylorMade TP5 golf ball.
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The back and face detail of Nelly Korda's TaylorMade P770 5-Iron
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The back and face detail of Nelly Korda's TaylorMade P7MC 7-iron
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Nelly Korda uses the TaylorMade Stealth 2 HD driver.
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Nelly Korda won her fifth consecutive tournament at the first Major of the LPGA Tour Season
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Nelly Korda uses Titleist Vokey Design SM8 wedges.
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Nelly Korda hitting her TaylorMade Qi10 Max driver
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The sole and hosel adaptor of Nelly Korda's TaylorMade Qi10 Max driver
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Nelly Korda hitting her TaylorMade Qi10 Max driver
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Nelly Korda with her TaylorMade TP5x golf ball
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Nelly Korda hitting her TaylorMade P7MC irons
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Nelly Korda putting
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The back and face detail of Nelly Korda's TaylorMade MG4 wedge
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A table showing how far Nelly Korda hits each club in her bag
