When Nelly Korda walked off the second green after starting her third round of the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship with back-to-back bogeys, she had just one thought.
“It’s going to be a long day,” Korda said.
That long day was just beginning at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco. With winds gusting up to 30 mph and the Texas heat baking the firm greens, play slowed to a crawl at the year’s third major. Korda and her playing partner, Brooke Henderson, played their first nine holes in three hours and ten minutes.
They waited for over 20 minutes on the seventh tee box as three groups sat on the same hole. Similar waits greeted them on the eighth and ninth tee boxes.
In the end, Korda and Henderson took around six hours to play their third round as a combination of conditions and a difficult setup led to gridlock in Frisco.
“There is nowhere to go, so just patience,” Korda, who shot an even par 72 on Saturday, said after the round about the pace of play. “I mean, I feel like I’ve — we’ve had lots of situations in the past year where we’ve had to wait a long time, so unfortunately I’m kind of used to it, which you don’t want to be, especially in a two-ball on Saturday of a major.
“You don’t want to be spending 20 minutes and getting up to the next tee and then it’s another 15 minutes. There is just no momentum in it. So I don’t know. You just have to go with it. Everyone is going through it, everyone is dealing with it, everyone is playing the same golf course. I think the wind was gusty throughout most of the day, so you just have to be really creative and really patient.”
Asked if there was something the PGA of America could do setup-wise to unclog play in the final round, Korda had a few thoughts as to why things were slow.
“I just think with the weather, it’s just too firm,” Korda said. “The hole locations are in almost impossible positions where not many people are hitting the greens, so obviously it’s going to take a lot more time. With it blowing 30 miles an hour, it’s just hard.”
Charley Hull, another notoriously fast player, was at a loss when confronted with the six-hour rounds for twosomes on Saturday.
“It was pretty crazy,” Hull told NBC in her television post-round interview. “We were playing two-balls this morning and it took us three hours and ten minutes to play nine holes, which is pretty crazy. We play a four-ball at home in three hours, you know what I mean, with bogeys and stuff. It’s pretty crazy. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty tough golf course, it’s really windy, and the setup is kind of tricky. You can’t really expect it to be anything else.”
The glacial pace in the Texas heat made a demanding day on the course even more frustrating. But this week, it’s all part of the major championship task.
One that only has one six-hour round to go.
“I think we played a two-ball in six hours,” Korda said. “That’s just a little ridiculous, but what can you do? I just told myself to be patient.”
This article originated on Golf.com
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