Hataoka Eagles 16th to Seize One-Shot Lead at Toto Japan Classic

Some golfers defend a title by grinding. Nasa Hataoka defended hers by catching fire. The defending champion eagled the par-5 16th for a back-nine 30 and an 8-under 64 on Friday, taking a one-stroke lead after two rounds of the LPGA Tour's Toto Japan Classic at the Taiheiyo Club in Omitama, Japan. Hataoka, who won in a playoff last year in a rain-shortened tournament, had a 36-hole total of 12-under 132. It was the kind of round that changes the shape of a tournament, a back nine played in 30 strokes that turned a crowded leaderboard into a chase behind the home favourite. The eagle at the 16th was the exclamation point, but the whole nine holes were the statement: when the defending champion gets going on this course, the rest of the field is playing for second. Miyu Yamashita, who won last week's Maybank Championship in Malaysia and shared the first-round lead, pulled her tee shot on the 18th fairway, which resulted in her only bogey of the day, and shot 67. She sits one stroke behind Hataoka, close enough that the final two rounds promise a proper duel between two of Japan's finest. Yamashita arrived in Omitama in the form of her life after Malaysia, and nothing in her second round suggested she intends to give up the chase quietly. Ana Belac, who became the first Slovenian player on the LPGA Tour in 2021, was tied for third after a 65 with Fuka Suga, who shot 67, two strokes behind Hataoka. It is a leaderboard with a distinctly international flavour at the top, but the story of the week is unmistakably Japanese: the defending champion leading, the hottest player in the field one shot back, and a home crowd with plenty to cheer through the weekend. The Japan Classic is the last of four tournaments on the LPGA's late-season Asian swing, the closing stop of a stretch that began with Ruoning Yin making a four-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole to win the LPGA Shanghai by one stroke on October 18. It is the 48th edition of a tournament that began life as an unofficial LPGA Tour event in the mid-1970s and has grown into one of the most popular stops on the schedule, played this week over the Minori Course for a $2.1 million purse. For Hataoka, the weekend is about finishing what Friday started. She knows this course, she knows this tournament, and she knows what it takes to win it, having done exactly that a year ago in a playoff. Two rounds remain, and Yamashita is breathing down her neck. But after a back nine of 30 and an eagle at the 16th, the defending champion holds the lead, and the tournament is hers to lose.