Jessica Korda Out Indefinitely With Back Injury

The 30-year-old has announced that she will stop playing until she resolves the pain from the long-standing injury

Jessica Korda at the 2023 JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club
Jessica Korda is taking time away from the game to address a back injury
(Image credit: Getty Images)

After a year of struggling with a back injury, Jessica Korda has announced she will be out of the game indefinitely to resolve the issue.

The 30-year-old most recently appeared in the Cognizant Founders Cup earlier in May. However, she withdrew after 10 holes of the second round. It appears that withdrawal was enough to convince Korda that the time had come to take a different approach to tackling her injury.

In a statement released on social media platforms, Korda explained: “The last year has been an extremely challenging time for me as I struggle with an injury in my back. Following the advice of my doctor and the guidance of my physio, we’ve committed countless hours of treatment at home and on the road for me to try and get my body healthy and ready to compete each week.

"Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where the pain is not improving, forcing me to have to withdraw out of several tournaments.

"As a competitor, it is upsetting to have to do this time and time again. At the advice of my medical team I have made the tough decision stop playing until I can get my back fully healthy. At this point, we don’t have a firm timeline for my return but I’m working with the best of the best and I’m focused on coming back as soon as possible.”

Korda announced in November that she would miss the rest of the LPGA Tour season with the injury, meaning she didn't play in either the Pelican Women’s Championship or the season-closing CME Group Tour Championship. 

At the time, she expressed a desire to come back stronger for 2023, saying: “I haven’t had the most luck when it comes to injuries in my career, nonetheless I’m going to keep on keeping on. Excited to be back next year for my 13th season on tour healthier and stronger.”

It hasn’t gone as she had planned. Korda completed five tournaments in 2023 before the Cognizant Founders Cup, with a best finish of T18 at the DIO Implant LA Open in April.

Korda has suffered a succession of injuries in recent years. She withdrew from the 2017 Solheim Cup with a wrist injury. Later that year, she had jaw surgery. Her luck didn’t improve the following year when she suffered a forearm injury, and she was forced to withdraw from the 2020 AIG Women’s Open for medical reasons. Before her back injury, she also suffered an intercostal muscle sprain in February 2022.

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Mike Hall
News Writer

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 

He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 

Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 

Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.