Nasa Hataoka and Shiho Kuwaki held on to the lead after a low scoring day at the TOTO Japan Classic where only twelve rounds of par or worse were played on Saturday, and the field shot a scoring average of 68.960, more than three strokes under par.
The leaders both shot 6-under 66s on Saturday. Hataoka made one bogey and fired off seven birdies, including three in-a-row on holes 6-8 and one on each of the back-nine par-5s. Meanwhile Kuwaki had a slow but solid day, going bogey free with two birdies and two impressive eagles on the par-5 12th and 17th.
“I play really good and I’m very happy to play with Shiho again and she played really solid so both play good… I am trying to get more birdies (than her) almost every holes… I hit still not good but my course management is pretty good and more safety and then my putting was really good,” said Hataoka, who headed straight to the range following her third round after hitting only five of 14 fairways. She said following her range session, “I’m trying on my swing, I need to find one key and I think I found it.”
Hataoka, who is aiming to win her seventh LPGA Tour title and first since early in the 2022 season, is leading the field in birdies this week with 23 total.
Kuwaki, on the other hand, is looking for her first JLPGA Tour (and LPGA Tour) win after nine top-10 finishes in Japan this season. She has just one professional victory in her young career, a win at the 2021 JLPGA Rookies Championship Kaga Electronics Cup, which is not an official JLPGA event. If she wins tomorrow, she will be offered LPGA Tour membership and a chance to join Hataoka and other Japanese stars on the LPGA Tour.
“I felt a little pressure before the start today. But, I will play with confidence tomorrow since I got the feeling somehow that I could play without any pressure tomorrow.” Kuwaki said. “I really enjoyed playing with (Nasa) and tried to follow her score for the last two days. But, I will need to play better than her tomorrow.”
Just one stroke behind the leaders is the JLPGA’s Mone Inami, who has been near the top of the leaderboard all week but never in the lead. She shot a third-round 65 along with JLPGA rookie Sora Kamiya, who is in solo fourth.
Four players are tied in fifth place including Thailand's Jasmine Suwannapura, who is continuing a good run of form after her T3 finish in Malaysia last week
