Olympics: Nelly Korda completes golden double for USA

Nelly Korda has underlined her status as the world’s leading female golfer with a gold-medal winning performance at the Olympics.

Leading by three going into the final round, the 23-year-old carded a two-under 69 to post a 17-under total, good enough to win by a shot from Japan’s Mone Inami and Lydia Ko of New Zealand.

Inami then beat Ko at the first hole of a sudden-death play-off to condemn the Rio 2016 silver-medallist to bronze this time around.

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Team GB’s Jodie Ewart-Shadoff and Melissa Reid were 40th and 55th respectively.

Korda’s victory comes just a matter of weeks after she won her first major championship and completes a golf gold double for the United States following Xander Schauffele’s victory in the men’s event last weekend.

“With sports it’s so different because you’re constantly looking ahead for your next event,” said Korda. “It never really gets to kind of sink in but when I do look back, it’s just crazy.”

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The world No.1 has now won three of her last four events and older sister Jessica, who was there to celebrate with her on the 18th, was full of praise.

“This is just kind of like almost legend status as a golfer, period, male or female,” she said. “It’s tough to win out here and she makes it look easy, but those girls are good. So for her to be doing this is insane to me. This is like total GOAT status to me.”