<p>OCALA, Fla. — Nelly Korda didn’t miss a beat four days after her first LPGA Tour title on U.S. soil, outplaying her sister and the world’s No. 1 player for a 5-under 67 to share the lead at the Drive On Championship.</p>
<p>Former NCAA champion Jennifer Kupcho managed a 67 despite playing most of the back nine with a migraine that blurs her vision. Austin Ernst also had a 67 at Golden Ocala.</p>
<p>The third-ranked Korda was part of a featured group that played early before the cool morning yielded to warm sunshine. She played alongside her older sister, Jessica, who had a 69; and Jin Young Ko, the No. 1 player in women’s golf who had a 75.</p>
<p>It’s a small sample size, but this has been the year of the Kordas.</p>
<p>Jessica Korda won a playoff to start the LPGA season at the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. Nelly Korda had a three-shot victory last week in the Gainbridge LPGA at Lake Nona.</p>
<p>“Nelly and I were talking about being in a fish bowl today,” Jessica Korda said.</p>
<p>Since winning at Lake Nona — her fourth career victory and first domestic title — Nelly Korda did a little laundry, took it easy with nine-hole practice rounds at Golden Ocala, tightened up her swing and it was like nothing had changed.</p>
<p>Among her five birdies, she chipped in from 50 feet from the rough below the 10th green and down a ridge. </p>
<p>Jessica Korda had six birdies, but she had to rally after taking a double bogey on the par-3 11th hole that left her 2 over for the round. She closed with four birdies over the last seven holes.</p>
<p>There is no sibling rivalry with these two, and no bragging rights, either.</p>
<p>“I think it’s just fun for us,” Nelly Korda said. “We have a lot of fun out there.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t as much fun for Ko after she opened with a birdie. She shot 40 on the back nine and wound up with her highest start on the LPGA Tour since a 77 at Hazeltine in the 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.</p>
<p>Golden Ocala is renowned for having replica holes from famous courses, three of them from Augusta National and two from the Old Course at St. Andrews. </p>
<p>Kupcho, along with her NCAA title at Wake Forest, captured the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019 with a back-nine charge. That day at the home of the Masters included her having to get through one of her migraines, in which her vision suffers.</p>
<p>Thursday was not much different.</p>
<p>“Honestly, about on 14 I was ready to get off the golf course,” Kupcho said.</p>
<p>By then, she had already done enough right. Kupcho ran off four straight birdies, two short putts on the par 5s on the front nine sandwiched around a 10-footer on No. 6, and her final birdie was on the 13th.</p>
<p>She said she had three migraines during the offseason and never knows when one is coming. This one started as she was over a shot early on the back nine.</p>
<p>“Even right now, it’s really blurry,” Kupcho said. “I can’t really see anything over to the left. So, yeah, it’s definitely really hard. I pretty much just leaned a lot on my caddie and just trusted him and tried to do the best that I could.”</p>
<p>Ernst got off to a rough start and was 2 over through four holes after back-to-back bogeys. She made seven birdies the rest of the way and shot 31 on the back nine.</p>
<p>Jing Yan of China and Jaye Marie Green shot 68, and Lydia Ko was in the group at 69 with Jessica Korda. </p>
<p>Second-ranked Sei Young Kim and No. 5 Danielle Kang shot 72. Lexi Thompson and Brooke Henderson opened with 74s.</p>
