Nelly Korda's Third-Major Bid Starts With a Loaded Group

Nelly Korda tees off at 8:42 a.m. Thursday in the AIG Women's Open's marquee group, paired with fellow major winner Haeran Ryu and defending champion Lydia Ko, according to the tee-times release published Tuesday on aigwomensopen.com. The grouping puts three of the year's biggest storylines in the same threesome for round 1, and puts Korda's bid for a third major of the season in the spotlight from the opening tee shot.

A group built for major-week theater

Tee-time groupings this early in a major usually tell you who the organizers expect to draw a crowd, and this one reads like a statement. Korda arrives as the world No. 1 with two majors already banked this season. Ryu is the only other player who has won multiple majors in 2026, which makes her the one player in the field with a real, recent answer to Korda's season. Ko is the defending champion, back at a new venue with the actual title to defend rather than just a reputation to live up to.

Put those three storylines in the same group and round 1 stops being a normal Thursday morning. Every shot gets read against what the other two are doing, whether the players themselves treat it that way or not.

The 8:42 a.m. slot matters beyond the theater of who's in the group. Early waves at a links venue like Royal Lytham & St Annes typically play calmer than whatever the afternoon brings once the wind builds off the Lancashire coast, so a morning tee time can be as much about conditions as about the leaderboard. That's not a guarantee, links weather is unpredictable by nature, but a marquee group with a morning tee time gets a cleaner look at the course than the same three players would get in the afternoon wave.

The case for Korda's third major

Korda's season to date reads as a two-major résumé most players would take for an entire career: the Chevron Championship and the U.S. Women's Open, both already won before the AIG Women's Open even started. A win at Royal Lytham & St Annes this week would make it three, and three majors in a single season is the kind of number that gets a player's name mentioned next to the sport's short list of standout years, regardless of what happens the rest of 2026.

That context is exactly why this particular tee time matters more than a typical Thursday pairing. Korda isn't just playing a major, she's playing it next to the one player, Ryu, with a season that can plausibly be compared to hers stroke for stroke, and next to the defending champion whose form nobody has to guess at since she's already proven she can win this exact tournament.

Ryu and Ko round out the story

Ryu's multi-major season means she arrives with something Korda has to respect directly rather than treat as background noise, a player who has already beaten major fields twice this year and is grouped with Korda from the first tee rather than meeting her only if both survive to a weekend leaderboard. Ko, meanwhile, carries a different kind of pressure entirely, the title itself. Defending a major anywhere is hard; defending one at a different course than the one it was won at removes any home-course familiarity a repeat champion might otherwise lean on, since last year's winning read on greens and lies doesn't carry over to a new venue.

That leaves three players in one group who each arrive under a different flavor of pressure: Korda chasing a number, Ryu chasing validation against the season's biggest name, and Ko defending a title with none of the usual home-course edge. None of that decides anything before a ball is struck Thursday, and reading too much into a pairing sheet before a shot is played is its own kind of trap. But a marquee group like this one is the AIG Women's Open signaling exactly where it expects the week's biggest story to start, and Korda's third-major bid is the headline act of the three names on it.

For the fuller picture of the field, the venue, and what makes Lytham such a difficult week for everyone else in the draw, see our AIG Women's Open 2026 preview.