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Mika Miyazato
宮里美香
Miyazato at the 2009 LPGA Championship
Personal information
Born (1989-10-10) 10 October 1989 (age 35)
Naha, Okinawa, Japan
Height 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)
Nationality  Japan
Career
Turned professional 2008
Current tour(s) LPGA Tour (joined 2009)
Professional wins 3
Number of wins by tour
LPGA Tour 1
LPGA of Japan Tour 2
Best results in LPGA Major Championships
Kraft Nabisco C'ship T7: 2011
LPGA Championship T2: 2012
U.S. Women's Open 5th: 2011
Women's British Open 4th: 2012
The Evian Championship T19: 2013

Mika Miyazato (Japanese: 宮里美香, born 10 October 1989) is a professional golfer from Japan who has played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour.

Career

As an amateur, Miyazato won the 2004 Japan Amateur Women's Championship at the age of 14, and was the youngest player to win the event. In the 2006 Asian Games, she won silver medals in the individual and team competitions. Miyazato turned professional in December 2008, after finishing in a tie for 12th in the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, a finish that gave her exempt status on the LPGA Tour. The medalist was Stacy Lewis, with Michelle Wie in a tie for seventh.

In her first season as a professional at age 19, she had fourth-place finishes at the LPGA Corning Classic and Wegmans LPGA tournaments in 2009. Miyazato's first professional victory came at the Japan Women's Open Golf Championship in October 2010. That year, she also had five top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour, including two third-place results, and was 17th on the money list with more than $600,000 in earnings.

In 2011, Miyazato held the 36-hole lead at the U.S. Women's Open and finished fifth. She had three other top-10s during the season, and won nearly $600,000.

Despite a slow start, 2012 was Miyazato's best season. After missing three successive cuts in the early spring, she lost in the first round of the Sybase Match Play Championship, and did not have a top twenty finish through May. Miyazato rebounded the next week in early June with a tie for third at the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Atlantic City. The following week, she tied for second at the LPGA Championship, two strokes behind winner Shanshan Feng. At her next start at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, Miyazato again tied for second. After two additional top ten finishes at the U.S. Women's Open and Jamie Farr Toledo Classic, she won her first LPGA Tour event in August at the Safeway Classic in Oregon. For the season, she earned more than $1 million and had nine top-10 finishes.

In October 2013, Miyazato won her second Japan Women's Open title. With a birdie on the last hole of the tournament, she defeated Erika Kikuchi and Miki Saiki by one stroke. Miyazato made less than half of her 2012 earnings during the 2013 LPGA Tour season, with a pair of top-10s. Her earnings on the LPGA dipped to about $105,000 in the 2014 season, before climbing back over $500,000 in 2015. Almost $200,000 of her 2015 total came at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, where she posted a second-place finish. During the 2016 season, Miyazato's earnings dropped to under $300,000, putting her in 68th place on the LPGA money list. She had one top-10 finish in 2016: a tie for sixth at the ShopRite LPGA Classic. In 2017, she played in 10 LPGA tournaments, missing the cut in eight of them. Miyazato ended the year outside the top 150 in season earnings. Her LPGA schedule in 2018 was limited to two events, a missed cut at the Marathon Classic and a tie for 52nd at the Ladies Scottish Open. In Miyazato's only LPGA appearance of 2019, at the Toto Japan Classic, she tied for 69th.

Although both are from Okinawa, she is not related to former LPGA Tour player Ai Miyazato.

Professional wins (3)

LPGA Tour wins (1)

No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory
Runner(s)-up
1 19 Aug 2012 Safeway Classic –13 (65-68-70=203) 2 strokes United States Brittany Lincicome
South Korea Inbee Park

JLPGA wins (2)

No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory
Runner-up
1 3 Oct 2010 Japan Women's Open Golf Championship –12 (68-67-73-68=276) 6 strokes Japan Miki Saiki
2 6 Oct 2013 Japan Women's Open Golf Championship E (70-70-73-75=288) 1 stroke Japan Erika Kikuchi
Japan Miki Saiki

Tournaments in bold denotes JLPGA major championships.

Results in LPGA majors

Results not in chronological order before 2015.

Tournament 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
ANA Inspiration T40 T7 CUT T63 CUT T29 T56 CUT
Women's PGA Championship T39 13 T8 T2 T22 CUT T41 T50
U.S. Women's Open T57 CUT 5 T7 T31 CUT CUT CUT CUT
Women's British Open T11 CUT T14 4 T59 T38 T7 T58
The Evian Championship ^ T19 T36 T34 T22

^ The Evian Championship was added as a major in 2013

     Top 10      Did not play CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied

Summary

Tournament Wins 2nd 3rd Top-5 Top-10 Top-25 Events Cuts made
ANA Inspiration 0 0 0 0 1 1 8 5
Women's PGA Championship 0 1 0 1 2 4 8 7
U.S. Women's Open 0 0 0 1 2 2 9 4
Women's British Open 0 0 0 1 2 4 8 7
The Evian Championship 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 4
Totals 0 1 0 3 7 13 37 27
  • Most consecutive cuts made – 8 (2012 LPGA – 2013 Evian)
  • Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (twice)

LPGA Tour career summary

Year Tournaments
played
Cuts
made
Wins 2nds 3rds Top 10s Best
finish
Earnings
($)
Money
list rank
Scoring
average
Scoring
rank
2007 1 1 0 0 0 0 T15 n/a n/a 70.50 n/a
2009 22 16 0 0 0 3 4 284,788 49 72.70 75
2010 23 19 0 0 2 5 3 608,889 17 71.55 22
2011 20 19 0 0 0 4 5 591,688 22 71.17 12
2012 20 17 1 2 1 9 1 1,098,749 11 70.94 10
2013 21 18 0 0 1 2 3 417,658 36 71.99 50
2014 16 10 0 0 0 0 T21 105,982 91 72.74 104
2015 24 22 0 1 0 5 2 583,141 28 71.18 19
2016 24 21 0 0 0 1 T6 270,663 68 71.72 57
2017 10 2 0 0 0 0 T35 18,390 157 72.29 110
2018 2 1 0 0 0 0 T52 5,298 170 71.50 n/a
2019 1 1 0 0 0 0 T69 0 n/a 73.33 n/a
  • official through 2019 season

World ranking

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

Year World
ranking
Source
2006 246
2007 256
2008 303
2009 60
2010 22
2011 24
2012 10
2013 22
2014 82
2015 37
2016 79
2017 243
2018 390
2019 148

Team appearances

Amateur

  • Espirito Santo Trophy (representing Japan): 2004, 2006, 2008

Professional

  • International Crown (representing Japan): 2014, 2016

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Mika Miyazato para niños

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