Nasa Hataoka

Nasa Hataoka (畑岡 奈紗) is a Japanese professional golfer born on 13 January 1999 in Kasama, Ibaraki, Japan. She competes primarily on the LPGA Tour and has established herself as one of Japan's most accomplished players of her generation, regularly appearing inside the top 20 of the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings. Her name is a nod to NASA, the United States space program, a detail that follows her throughout a career that has been anything but ordinary.

Hataoka's ascent began before she turned professional. In 2016, as an amateur, she won the Japan Women's Open Golf Championship on the JLPGA Tour, becoming the youngest player and the first amateur ever to claim that title. She turned professional immediately after and earned her LPGA Tour card through the final qualifying tournament, debuting on tour in 2017. Her breakthrough at the LPGA level came in 2018 when she won twice, first at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship and then at the Toto Japan Classic, a co-sanctioned event that pushed her into the top 10 of the world rankings. She added the Kia Classic in 2019, two more wins in 2021 including the Marathon Classic and a second NW Arkansas title, and the DIO Implant LA Open in 2022. Her most recent LPGA victory came at the 2025 Toto Japan Classic, won in a playoff against Yuna Araki.

In women's major championships she has come close more than once. At the 2018 KPMG Women's PGA Championship she finished T2 in a three-way playoff, alongside Ryu So-yeon, with Park Sung-hyun taking the title. At the 2021 U.S. Women's Open at The Olympic Club she shot a final-round 68 to force a playoff with Yuka Saso, who prevailed on the third extra hole. Hataoka is regarded as a precise ball-striker, a quality she sharpened during a swing rebuild that contributed to her 2022 LA Open win, where she missed just four fairways across the week. She has compiled seven LPGA Tour wins and twelve victories worldwide, spanning both the LPGA Tour and the JLPGA Tour.

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