The heights they are reaching have become comical, two golfers taking over their respective sports with such dominance that — at least for this moment — it’s difficult to imagine anyone beating them.

Nelly Korda just won her fifth straight start, ending with a major, the Chevron Championship. Scottie Scheffler just won four of five starts with a Masters in the middle. The men’s and women’s world No. 1s are no longer just the best players in their sport. They are becoming two of the best ever. It’s reached the point Scheffler was playfully asked this week in Hilton Head if the two of them are in a competition.

“I don’t know, man,” he joked, “I think if it’s a competition she’s got me pretty beat right now. Five wins in a row. She had that T16 at the beginning of the year, which was just terrible. I can’t believe she did that.”

And with their runs of greatness has come a fun little trend: Who can post the most ridiculous, impressive statistics or notes to quantify how incredible their golf has been in 2024.

“The best five weeks since this.”

“The most strokes gained since that.”

It’s become so extreme and entertaining that we decided, hey, let’s make a list of the most impressive and telling notes on Scheffler’s and Korda’s historic runs.

1.…

Five wins. Five starts. Nelly Korda has once again matched women’s golf history.

Korda won the Chevron Championship for her fifth victory in five consecutive tournament starts, joining Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sorenstam (2004, 2005) as the only players to go five-for-five on the LPGA.

The 25-year-old defeated Maja Stark by two shots to capture her second career major championship and 13th Tour win, carding a 13-under tournament total at the Club at Carlton Woods on Sunday.

“I can finally breathe now,” Korda said standing on the 18th green in Houston after the final round took more than six hours to complete. “That back nine felt like the longest back nine of my entire life.”

After the weather-delayed third round concluded in the morning, Korda teed off in the final threesome tied with Canada’s Brooke Henderson at 10-under, one shot behind the solo leader Hae Ran Ryu. But as Henderson and Ryu faltered within the first four holes, Korda surged. She made back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth holes to take an early but commanding three-shot lead at 12-under.

Korda made two more birdies on the par-5 eighth and 10th, where she…

The Pulse Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.

---

Good morning! So long, Coyotes.

Hi, I’m Dominant: The legend of Nelly Korda

Nelly Korda finished the first round of Thursday’s Chevron Championship, one of the LPGA’s five majors, at 4-under par, two shots back of leader Lauren Coughlin. Solid, right? In contention. Nice. 

There’s so much more to it, though. Two things you might not know about Korda: 

• She has won FOUR straight LPGA tournaments, one shy of the tour record. 
• She is the best golfer in the world right now not named Scottie Scheffler. 

Golf fans know world No. 1 Korda well, but her streak is opening up a new lane of attention with the general sports public. I went to Gabby Herzig, our newest golf writer, for proper context on this ridiculous run of dominance: 

I want to get some perspective first. Where does this four-win stretch for Korda rank in the history of women’s golf?
Gabby: It’s up there — Korda’s streak puts her next to some legendary names in the women’s game. Korda just became the first player to win four consecutive starts since Lorena Ochoa in 2008, and an American player has not gone on a run like this in 46 years, since Nancy Lopez’s five-win…

Can Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and the great WNBA Draft class significantly increase that league’s viewership? What do you want most in an NFL Draft broadcast as a viewer? Can pro golf find its audience mojo again? Leave your sports media questions below and senior writer Richard Deitsch will answer some of them in an upcoming mailbag.

Of course, you know the calls. Verne Lundquist provided the soundtrack for so many iconic sports moments, from Jack Nicklaus’ 17th-hole birdie putt at the 1986 Masters (“Yes, sir!”) to Christian Laettner’s jumper at the buzzer in the 1992 NCAA Tournament (“Yes!”) to Tiger Woods’ famed chip at No. 16 at the 2005 Masters (“In your life, have you seen anything like that?!”) to Auburn’s kick-six in the 2013 Iron Bowl (“An answered prayer!”). So many more, too.

But here is something you may not know: On the night of Nov. 22, 1963, Lundquist was just a 23-year-old weekend sportscaster on television and afternoon disc jockey at KTBC-AM-FM-TV, an Austin, Texas, radio-television station owned by Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird. That evening, he volunteered to drive CBS News correspondent David Schoumacher and two other CBS staffers the 60 miles from Austin to Johnson City so they could interview friends, relatives and high school classmates of Johnson, who would soon become President of the United States. He never forgot that night. How could you?

But my favorite Verne story is how he met his wife, Nancy. It’s one he told me many years ago for a Sports Illustrated piece. Here it is, in his own words:

We met in a bar — and I hasten to add it was an…

AUGUSTA, Ga. — There’s no way he doesn’t hear them. Three rows into the Augusta National driving range is the Scheffler clan, holding court some 20 yards from the No. 1 player in the world. There they are: father, Scott; mother, Diane; sisters Molly and Sara; all leaned back in their seats with their legs stretched out, hamming it up without a worry in the world. They are narrating his shots, and the girls are pressuring Scott to get them cookies before their brother’s round. There’s no way Scottie Scheffler doesn’t hear them, 20 minutes before teeing off as co-leader at the Masters. But all he does is stripe golf balls into the Georgia sky, unaffected, and joke around with his caddie, Ted Scott, and coach, Randy Smith.

This is all just the norm for Scheffler. Playing weekend rounds in the final groups on the largest stages with his family nearby has become a weekly occurrence. And Sunday, he’ll play for his second green jacket starting with a one-shot lead over Collin Morikawa.

But this week, he doesn’t have Meredith.

His high school sweetheart and wife is eight months pregnant. She’s a mainstay at tournaments, the bubbly, joyful presence who sprints onto greens after his nine wins in 26 months. She’s due in a few weeks (Scheffler has vowed to leave and head…

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Lottie Woad takes two practice strokes, her head peering over at the cup as she rehearses her ideal follow-through. She shuffles her feet forward, separating them to shoulder width as she gently places her left hand on her leather grip. She rests her mallet putter behind the ball. One more look. She pulls the trigger.

Behind every triumph at Augusta National is a process. Woad has hers down to a science.

The Florida State sophomore’s pre-putt ritual over that 16-footer on No. 18 — the one that capped off her birdie-birdie finish to come back and win the Augusta National Women’s Amateur by one shot — was a routine she has executed thousands of times. All she had to do was stick to it. That part was never in doubt for the 20-year-old.

It turns out that following a game plan is Woad’s specialty. Her Augusta National course management strategy has been mapped out since she first played it during the 2023 ANWA final round. Her practice sessions are scheduled down to the minute. She recently started working with a sports psychologist to learn breathing techniques for critical moments. Anytime she spots a leaderboard, Woad stares it down: She wants to know exactly where she stands, at all times.

“Lottie is almost an obsessive-compulsive golfer,” says Steve…

Lottie Woad has won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, taming the course’s famed finishing holes to charge back up the leaderboard on Saturday.

Woad birdied the 15th, 17th and 18th holes to finish at 8-under, one stroke ahead of Bailey Shoemaker. The comeback was complete with a long birdie putt on 18, from pin high. The Florida State sophomore was fearless, attacking the cup with a putt that looked good the whole way.

Woad began the final round of the fifth ANWA in the lead and played the front nine in 1-under, but Shoemaker was making a charge from further up the course. The latter started the day four shots behind, but played the first 11 holes in 4-under and then tacked on two more birdies (12 pars, 6 birdies for the day) to take the lead walking off 18. She lingered on the grass in front of the clubhouse, went inside and then was warming up for a potential playoff with Woad. Shoemaker’s final round was the best on the course by three strokes.

However, Woad, a native of Farnham, England, bogeyed No. 13 and then somehow flipped a switch, including that remarkable birdie-birdie finish. Her final round was a 3-under 69.

Woad, 20, was a first-team All-American at FSU as a freshman and has also won the R&A Girls’ Amateur.

The winning moment for Lottie Woad.#ANWAGolf

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Augusta National Women’s Amateur is not just having a moment. This is the tournament’s reality, only five years into its existence.

Morgan Pressel, the LPGA major champion turned Golf Channel analyst, doesn’t hesitate to call it the most “impactful” event in women’s golf. USC junior Amari Avery even goes as far as to say the tournament feels “bigger than the U.S. Women’s Open,” an event she’s participated in twice and has been held since 1946.

ANWA has been a big deal since its inception, announced by Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley in 2018 — a 54-hole championship with the best female amateurs in the world, two rounds at nearby Champions Retreat Golf Club and the final round at the site of the Masters. Five championships later (2020 was canceled due to the pandemic), it has reached another level.

Since Jennifer Kupcho triumphed over Maria Fassi in a neck-and-neck battle down the stretch at the inaugural playing of the event in 2019, the ANWA has crowned star champions year after year, leading to additional support and coverage. Golf Channel added live broadcasts of the first two tournament rounds at Champions Retreat in 2023. Legendary sportscaster Mike Tirico will commentate Saturday’s final round at Augusta National…

Augusta, Ga. — Anna Davis, the sole past champion in the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur field, was assessed a one-stroke penalty for slow play Thursday. The costly rules violation moved Davis from 3 over par to 4 over for the championship, which means she will miss the 36-hole cut and, in turn, Saturday’s final round at Augusta National.

The first two rounds of the ANWA are played at Champions Retreat Golf Club, where Davis’ rules violation occurred on Thursday. All competitors get the chance to play a practice round at Augusta National on Friday.

Rules officials notified Davis and her playing partners multiple times that they were “out of position,” per the tournament’s pace of play policy. That’s when the group — which includes the 36-hole leader Lottie Woad — was officially put on the clock.

According to the tournament’s pace of play policy, a player is allowed 40 seconds to play a stroke, and 10 additional seconds if they are the first player to play.

The ANWA Tournament headquarters released the following statement on Davis’s rules violation.

“Anna Davis was assessed a one-stroke penalty for violation of the Tournament’s Pace of Play Policy. Her group, which included Lottie Woad and Maria Jose Marin, was notified that they were out of…