Pat McAfee was struggling with his golf swing for a while, but has finally nailed it. How? He mimicked three-time major winner Nelly Korda‘s actions on his show and scored an impressive 309/324 on his own golf simulator. The former NFL punter shared his swing on Instagram Stories, giving Korda a public shout-out.
“Coca-Cola.” — “Thank you, @NellyKorda.”
Korda was fresh off her 18th LPGA Tour win at the Riviera Maya Open in Mexico when she appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday. Never one to miss an opportunity, McAfee asked Korda exactly how her swing game has been working so well.
“My dad and my parents, they spent so many hours with me just working on tempo. That is the one thing that they ingrained in my brain and my dad always referred to as like, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola. So that was like the key.”
Korda uses “Coca” for the backswing and “Cola” to trigger the downswing. While speaking, she demonstrated the motion in the air, showing how the two-beat rhythm helps prevent the transition from getting rushed. Amusingly, while Korda was explaining it, Pat McAfee was already trying to air swings in the background.
View this post on Instagram
Even though her swing cue came long before any coaching, she also credits her longtime coach, David Whelan. David has worked with her since she turned professional and built her swing around one idea: less is more.
Korda admitted that her 2013 swing is almost unrecognizable compared to what it is today. Back then, the motion lacked structure, with no real sequencing and an uncontrolled tempo. Today, her signature move starts with a centered pivot in the backswing, with her hips and shoulders staying perfectly still before a lateral shift into the front foot drives the downswing. And her signature rib twist? For that, she uses a weak grip, releasing the club early to close the face and produce a consistent draw.
Even now, the smallest details still matter to her. Recently, Korda explained she focuses on keeping her chest closer to the ground to maintain posture at address, a level of self-awareness that has become a major part of her game.
That foundation has certainly been on full display in 2026. Korda has already won three times in six LPGA Tour starts this season, including the Chevron Championship, while finishing runner-up in the other three events.
And Korda is hardly the only golfer obsessed with the smallest details. Across the sport, many of the game’s best players rely on these tiny observations and subtle adjustments to sharpen their performance. After all, golf has always been a game built on nuance.
Golf’s simple swing secrets
One of the most legendary players ever to rely on a nuanced rhythm in golf was Annika Sörenstam. She dominated women’s golf for years and was famous for her smooth tempo on the course. She became the first woman in 58 years to compete in a PGA Tour event at the 2003 Colonial tournament and later added the 2021 U.S. Senior Women’s Open to her resume.
No player still matches Annika’s smooth tempo control. And yet again, a simple solution helped her nail it.
Sörenstam once explained that she tried to swing every club at roughly the same effort level, around six out of 10, or about 60% of her maximum speed. But when nerves threatened to speed things up, she turned to a tempo cue of her own.
She began counting “1-2-3” from her setup to the top of the backswing, and another “1-2-3” from the top through her finish. According to Sörenstam, the rhythm helped her the most when pressure threatened to rush her swing.
Hall of Famer Vijay Singh used a similar two-word system during the peak of his career. He originally counted “1-2” in his head while swinging, but realized he was rushing through it too quickly. To slow himself down, Singh replaced it with “Seventeen” during the backswing, a longer word that naturally stretched out his tempo, and paired it with “hips” on the downswing to trigger his lower body.
That simple combination helped anchor his rhythm throughout some of the best years of his career.
So next time you take a swing, try: “Seventeen… hips.”
