As the world No. 1, she is always the woman to beat and halfway through the Women’s Open at St. Andrews, Nelly Korda is living up to her pre-championship reputation. With two 68s, the 26-year-old American is eight under par and three shots clear in the race for her third major victory.

The chasing pack is almost as impressive. An impressive group of close challengers includes defending champion Lilia Vu, last year’s runner-up Charley Hull, Olympic gold medallist Lydia Ko and 2022 Women’s Open at Muirfield winner South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai, all within five strokes of the leader.

That’s pretty much what you can expect from players of this obvious class, and everyone will be hoping for the ultimate victory. At least based on the experiences of the last few months, you never know exactly what Korda will do next.

Rarely have the vagaries of golf been more clearly illustrated than the year Korda has experienced and endured. Between late January and mid-May, the Floridian native competed in seven LPGA Tour events and won six of them, including the Chevron Championship, her second major title. Since then, however, her form has gone from outstanding to abysmal.

Consider the evidence. The last of those six wins was followed by three consecutive missed cuts. To make matters worse, two of those came at major championships, with Korda’s first off weekend coming at the biggest event in women’s tennis, the Women’s US Open. She entered as the overwhelming favorite and shot a spectacular, humiliating 80 in the first round. A day later, “missed cut” inevitably appeared next to her name on the scoreboard.

Perhaps just as odd is that after her mini-slump, Korda’s play was neither great nor terrible, but entered a period of mediocrity in her up-and-down season. A shared 26th place finish at another major, the Evian Championship, was followed by a shared 22nd place finish at the Paris Olympics. So anything is possible for 2024, with her performances fluctuating erratically between brilliant and mediocre to terrible.

“I think that’s life in general or, you know, sports,” was Korda’s pre-tournament explanation for all of the above. “You never shoot straight up. You go up. You go down. I think the best thing about the downs is that you learn so much about yourself. It’s always a learning opportunity and I enjoy that. I always try to look at everything positively. Obviously, compared to the beginning of the year, I’ve had some not so great results. But at the end of the day, I’m still learning and getting better because of it.”

That’s certainly been the case so far this week. Korda has dropped just one stroke in her first 36 holes. Given the prevailing conditions, which have brought all the traditional elements of a Scottish summer – high winds and heavy rain – that represents an exceptional level of consistency.

“I played really solid golf and I’m happy with it,” said Korda, who switched to a new Spider putter on the eve of this event to “try something different.”

“This year I’ve won on so many different types of grass in different conditions. I’ve always had to adapt. I think that’s what makes links golf so much fun. This week I started my shots 30 yards left of my target. I’m not usually a fader player, but I hit massive fades. So I enjoy links golf a lot. And every year I get to play it, I learn a little bit more.”