LOS ANGELES -- If Nelly Korda had ever colored her childhood dream, if she had filled in the edges with specific sights and sounds and allowed her mind to build the world that would witness her finally winning the U.S. Open, it might have still not looked better than the reality that played out on the 18th green at Riviera Country Club on Sunday afternoon.
For 72 holes of one of the tougher tests the best women in the world have faced, Korda played far from perfect golf. The pressure, though not outwardly visible, was palpable. The best player in the world was not just the favorite coming into the week, she was all but expected to win. It was time, the narrative said. With three majors under her belt, the U.S. Open hung in the balance, the line in her résumé that seemed as if it should have already been written for a player of her caliber.
So when the final par putt curled in, a dramatic, near 360-swirl around the cup that made the slight difference between agony and elation, it was not relief as much as it was disbelief that the moment, the dream, had been realized at last.
"That 14-year-old girl that stepped on the range at Sebonack in 2013," Korda said, referring to her U.S. Open debut, "her dream has just come true sitting next to this trophy right now. It's really hard to put into words."
The crowd that had rooted for her the moment she stepped onto the property and filled the natural amphitheater around the 18th green burst into celebration. Her family celebrated greenside knowing full well how much this one, more than any of her previous 18 wins and more than any of her other three major championships, meant to her.
"This is the biggest event in golf, this is the one you want to win," said her caddie, Jason McDede, no longer holding back his tears after the trophy ceremony. "I feel like it was destiny."
Moments after the win was secured, near the stairs above the 18th green, Korda's sister, Jessica, wiped away tears, marveling at how her sister -- the one who had watched her compete for a U.S. Open at age 15 -- had handled the pressure and emerged with a long-awaited win at this major. Below, their dad, Petr, broke into a proud smile.
"It's the U.S. Open," Petr said. "It's what she wanted. She wanted to win this trophy already."
And yet as idyllic as the final result for the unquestioned best player in the world was, the dirty work lingered underneath the surface. This had not been easy. Even as she hit the ball well Monday and Tuesday and plotted her plan around Riviera with swing coach Jamie Mulligan -- a local who had seen countless L.A. Opens at the venue before -- Thursday blindsided her. Her swing had suddenly left her and shots kept leaking right on her way to a disappointing 73 that put her tied for 52nd.
"I just kept hitting these drives out right, out right, and out right, and I kept telling [McDede], like, 'I can't compete on this golf course if I'm not in the fairway,'" Korda said. "Like, you cannot stop it on these greens."
It became harder still when Jessica, a pro golfer herself, suggested a stronger grip might be the fix she needed, and Korda decided to try it.
"It was honestly the worst. My sister was like, 'I barely could sleep. I just literally told you to change your grip during a major championship,'" Korda said. "It is so uncomfortable."
Somehow, the grip change not only stuck, but it also helped, and it became a sort of temporary glue that Korda tried to get more comfortable with every day on the range. As terrifying as it might have felt in her grasp, she couldn't argue with the results. Friday produced a 67. Saturday saw another, complete with three birdies in the last three holes that gave her a share of the lead.
It all set the stage for Sunday. A year after placing second at this event -- her best finish yet, fueling her hunger for this particular tournament -- it was all suddenly within reach but far from a certainty.
"Obviously, I've had doubts of, like, even midround I was like, 'Well, will I ever win it?' I mean you always have those doubts," Korda said. "But I think you're just a human being if you have them. Like, everyone will have them eventually at some parts of their career."
Sunday brought with it bigger stakes, a rising heart rate and more difficulty. Birdies on the first hole and the par-3 sixth were boosts, but Korda was still not hitting great -- she missed greens on Holes 2 through 5 and Holes 12 through 14, putting all the pressure on her wedge and putter. The clubs answered the call -- she failed to get up and down only once.
"This week was definitely a grind. I don't even feel like I had my B game. I was just grinding out there," Korda said. "And that's what I guess major championships are all about, right? It doesn't matter if you have your B or C game, you have to be there mentally."
The golf world has seen a version of Korda that is nearly flawless before. At her best, she hits greens and fairways in regulation in droves, making an impossible game look easy and winning major championships by multiple strokes as she did last month when she won the Chevron Championship by five.
But the U.S. Open has always called for something more than perfect golf. In fact, as Korda pointed out this past week, the tournament is more about how you limit the mistakes and the damage they cause than it is about how many birdies you can make. It's a victory that, as the USGA likes to say, requires getting every club in your bag dirty, including the one between your ears.
"She's been maturing beautifully," Mulligan said Sunday. "She's figuring out that it's OK to make a mistake. This week, her and her caddie stuck to the game plan. Even going down to the very last shot that was hit exactly where it needed to be."
Korda opened up about that growth this week, mentioning how her fiancé has told her to be more positive on the golf course and how she has made a conscious effort this season to not get hung up on the single moments that go awry but rather shift her attitude to what she needs to do next.
"Every golfer is going to vent. Every athlete needs a little vent," McDede said. "But the vent has to stop by the time the next shot is hit."
As Korda and McDede walked up 18 on Sunday, there was no venting to be done, not even a single word to be spoken. The silence between them said it all. In a season that had already featured three wins in seven starts, including a major, this was the one they both wanted the most.
"I had to honestly a couple times tell myself, 'Stay in the moment, stay in the moment,'" Korda said of the walk. "Because I was dreaming, I was dreaming of hoisting the trophy a little too early."
Preordained or not, Korda now owns the year's first two majors, and there's no sign of her slowing down. The concept of her legacy, she said Sunday, does not motivate her. Neither does being the face of the sport she is dominating, a notion she balked at earlier in the week.
The reality of her popularity, however, is unavoidable. It's there when you see the galleries of fans that surround her, there when you hear the chants of "Nelly!" from a throng of young children hoping to get her autograph, chasing her from the interview area to the putting green where she has promised to make their day.
Whether she leans into that notion following this win or sticks to her current approach, the dream that turned into reality Sunday is just further confirmation: Not only is Korda the face of the sport, but right now no one in the game is better than her. And if this is what it looks like when she does not have her best, there might not be a player who is even close.