Ai Miyazato

Ai Miyazato 宮里 藍
Miyazato at the 2010 Women's British Open
Personal information
Born	(1985-06-19) 19 June 1985 Higashi, Okinawa, Japan
Height	5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)
Nationality	Japan
Residence	Higashi, Okinawa, Japan
Career
Turned professional	2004
Retired	2017
Former tour(s)	LPGA of Japan Tour LPGA Tour Ladies European Tour
Professional wins	25
Number of wins by tour
LPGA Tour	9
Ladies European Tour	2
LPGA of Japan Tour	15
Other	1
Best results in LPGA major championships
ANA Inspiration	T15: 2007
Women's PGA C'ship	T3: 2006, 2010
U.S. Women's Open	T6: 2009, 2011
Women's British Open	T3: 2009
Evian Championship	T15: 2013
Achievements and awards
Ladies European Tour Order of Merit winner	2011
William and Mousie Powell Award	2012

Ai Miyazato (宮里 藍, Miyazato Ai, born 19 June 1985) is a Japanese professional golfer who currently competes on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and the LPGA of Japan Tour (JLPGA). She was the top-ranked golfer in the Women's World Golf Rankings on three occasions in 2010.

Early life and amateur career

Miyazato was born in Higashi, Okinawa, Japan. As an amateur in 2003, she won a professional event on the LPGA of Japan Tour – the Dunlop Ladies Open in Miyagi Prefecture, where she was attending high school at the time.

Professional career

In her 2004 rookie season on the JLPGA Tour she won five tournaments. In February 2005, she represented Japan along with Rui Kitada and won the inaugural Women's World Cup of Golf.^[1] In 2005, she won six events on the JLPGA tour, and was the #2 ranked player on the JLPGA Tour behind Yuri Fudoh.

In winning the Japan Open Championship at age 20 in 2005, Miyazato became the youngest player on the JLPGA Tour to win a major. Furthering the notion that Miyazato revived the JLPGA Tour after the retirement of Ayako Okamoto, over 32,000 spectators, the largest gallery ever to attend a JLPGA event, witnessed the final round.

At the LPGA Qualifying Tournament in Florida in December 2005, Miyazato easily secured her tour card for the 2006 season. She was under-par in four of the five rounds, and was 12 strokes ahead of the closest competitor, which set a record for the largest margin of victory.^[2] Back in Japan, on 15 December, she played the opening rounds of the Okinawa Open, becoming the first Japanese woman to compete in a domestic men's professional event, although she failed to make the cut for the final rounds.

In her fourth season on the LPGA Tour in 2009, Miyazato earned her first win at the Evian Masters in France, defeating Sophie Gustafson at the first hole of a sudden-death playoff.^[3]

In 2010, she won four of the first nine official tournaments on the LPGA Tour and on 21 June rose to number 1 in the Women's World Golf Rankings. She held the spot for only one week and was replaced by Cristie Kerr who held the spot for three weeks, before Miyazato regained the spot again on 19 July, by a narrow margin of 0.0006 average points.^[4]

In August, Miyazato won for the fifth time in 2010 at the Safeway Classic in Oregon, with a two-stroke victory over Kerr and Na Yeon Choi. She regained the top spot in the world rankings, which had been briefly retaken by Kerr, but then gave it up to Kerr on 25 October.

In 2011, Miyazato won the Order of Merit on the Ladies European Tour (LET), despite only playing in two events on that tour, the co-sponsored events with the LPGA. The LET has no minimum tournament requirements for membership and her second win at the Evian Masters, whose purse is much larger than most LET events, earned her enough to top the list.^[5]

In April 2012, Miyazato won her eighth LPGA event at the inaugural LPGA Lotte Championship in Hawaii, four strokes ahead of runners-up Azahara Muñoz and Meena Lee.

She has endorsements deals with Suntory, Bridgestone Corporation, Japan Airlines, Oakley, Honda, Hisamitsu, Mitsubishi Electric and NTT Docomo.

Her older brothers, Kiyoshi Miyazato and Yūsaku Miyazato are also professional golfers. She is not related to fellow Japanese LPGA Tour player Mika Miyazato.

On 27 May 2017, Kyodo News Agency reported that Miyazato would retire at the end of the season.^[6]

Professional wins (25)

LPGA Tour (9)

No.	Date	Tournament	Winning score	To par	Margin of victory	Runner(s)-up	Winner's share ($)
1	26 Jul 2009	Evian Masters	69-66-70-69=274	–14	Playoff	Sophie Gustafson	487,500
2	21 Feb 2010	Honda PTT LPGA Thailand	67-67-70-63=267	–21	1 stroke	Suzann Pettersen	195,000
3	28 Feb 2010	HSBC Women's Champions	69-71-69-69=278	–10	2 strokes	Cristie Kerr	195,000
4	2 May 2010	Tres Marias Championship	63-72-71-67=273	–19	1 stroke	Stacy Lewis	195,000
5	20 Jun 2010	ShopRite LPGA Classic	66-67-64=197	–16	2 strokes	M. J. Hur	225,000
6	22 Aug 2010	Safeway Classic	66-67-72=205	–11	2 strokes	Na Yeon Choi Cristie Kerr	225,000
7	24 Jul 2011	Evian Masters	68-68-67-70=273	–15	2 strokes	Stacy Lewis	487,500
8	21 Apr 2012	LPGA Lotte Championship	71-65-70-70=276	–12	4 strokes	Meena Lee Azahara Muñoz	255,000
9	1 Jul 2012	Walmart NW Arkansas Championship	68-68-65=200	–12	1 stroke	Mika Miyazato Azahara Muñoz	300,000

LPGA Tour playoff record (1–0)

No.	Year	Tournament	Opponent(s)	Result
1	2009	Evian Masters	Sophie Gustafson	Won with birdie on first extra hole

JLPGA Tour (15)

No.	Date	Tournament	Winning score	To par	Margin of victory	Runner(s)-up
1	28 Sep 2003	Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open (as an amateur)	70-70-71=211	–5	1 stroke	Mari Katayama Hiroko Yamaguchi
2	7 Mar 2004	Daikin Orchid Ladies	70-66-70=206	–10	3 strokes	Kaori Higo
3	13 Jun 2004	Suntory Ladies Open	69-70-70-68=277	–11	6 strokes	Hiroko Yamaguchi Toshimi Kimura
4	20 Jun 2004	APiTA Circle K Sunkus Ladies	69-69-72=210	–6	1 stroke	Yuri Fudoh
5	24 Oct 2004	Masters GC Ladies	69-68-68=205	–11	1 stroke	Miho Koga
6	21 Nov 2004	Daio Paper Elleair Ladies Open	66-67-69=202	–14	3 strokes	Chieko Amanuma Rui Kitada
7	15 May 2005	Vernal Ladies	69-64-70=203	–13	8 strokes	Akiko Fukushima
8	22 May 2005	Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open	65-74-70=209	–7	Playoff	Nikki Campbell
9	21 Aug 2005	New Catapillar Mitsubishi Ladies	66-75-68=209	–10	3 strokes	Mi-Jeong Jeon Hiromi Mogi
10	2 Oct 2005	Japan Women's Open Golf Championship	69-69-72-73=283	–5	5 strokes	Akiko Fukushima
11	30 Oct 2005	Hisako Higuchi IDC Otsuka Kagu Ladies	67-68-67=202	–14	7 strokes	Julie Lu Nikki Campbell Kaori Higo Shinobu Moromizato
12	20 Nov 2005	Daio Paper Elleair Ladies Open	69-70-65=204	–12	5 strokes	Shiho Oyama Woo-Soon Ko Kasumi Fujii
13	10 Sep 2006	JLPGA Championship Konica Minolta Cup	70-68-74-70=282	–6	3 strokes	Hyun-Ju Shin
14	24 Sep 2006	Miyagi TV Cup Dunlop Ladies Open	70-73-71=214	–2	3 strokes	Shiho Oyama
15	11 Oct 2009	Sankyo Ladies Open	74-70-68=212	–4	1 stroke	Mayu Hattori Mi-Jeong Jeon

Tournament in bold denotes major championships in JLPGA Tour.

Results in LPGA majors

Results not in chronological order before 2015.

^ The Evian Championship was added as a major in 2013

DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
Yellow background for a top-10 finish

LPGA Tour career summary

• Official as of 2017 season^[7]

* Includes matchplay and other events without a cut.

JLPGA prize money

World ranking

Position in Women's World Golf Rankings at the end of each calendar year.

^ Miyazato was last ranked on 25 September 2017. She dropped from the ranking following her retirement.

Team appearances

Amateur

• Espirito Santo Trophy (representing Japan): 2002

Professional

• World Cup (representing Japan): 2005 (winners), 2006
• International Crown (representing Japan): 2014

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ai Miyazato.

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Ai Miyazato at the LPGA Tour official site
• Ai Miyazato at the LPGA of Japan Tour official site (in Japanese)
• Ai Miyazato at the Ladies European Tour official site