[administrator]

Birthdate: June 19, 1985
Nationality: Japanese
Turned Professional: 2005
Current Tour: LPGA
JLPGA



Background & Professional Career Bio:
A golfer by age four, Miyazato credits her brothers with helping her career. As an amateur, she won a professional event, the JLPGA Dunlop Ladies Open in Miyagi Prefecture (she was attending high school at the time. The following year, she won five JPLGA tournaments and then went on to represent Japan in the Acer World Cup of Golf. In 2005, she became the #2 ranked player in Japan, and she was the youngest player on the JLPGA Tour to win a major. A record breaking 32,000 watched the final day of her tournament. In December of 2005, she became the first Japanese woman to compete in a Japanese men’s event, though she failed to qualify on the second day of play. Miyazato earned her LPGA tour card on the first try, finishing 12 strokes ahead and setting a LPGA tour qualifying record.


Professional Wins:

Professional tour victories
· 2003: Dunlop Ladies Open (all JLPGA)
· 2004: Daikin Ladies Open, Suntory Open, Circle K Sunkus Ladies Open, Masters Ladies Open, Daio Paper Open (all JLPGA)
· 2005 – Vernal Ladies Open, Bridgestone Open, New Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ladies Open, Japan Open Championship, IDC Otsuka Ladies Classic, Daio Paper Open (all JLPGA)
Majors: None

Awards: None

LPGA Earnings
(per year): $336,684

She has appeared in 73 LPGA events. She made the cut in 58 of those events.

JLPGA Earnings: Career total Career total ¥ 297,015,521 (41)

 

[Icon™]

Miyazato Ai (宮里 藍, Miyazato Ai?, born 19 June 1985 in Higashi, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan) is a professional Ryukyuan golfer who currently competes on the US-based LPGA Tour and the Japan LPGA Tour (JLPGA)

As an amateur in 2003, she won a professional event on the Japan LPGA Tour – the Dunlop Ladies Open in Miyagi Prefecture, which is where she was attending high school at the time. In her 2004 rookie season on the JLPGA Tour she won five tournaments. In February 2005, she represented Japan along with Rui Kitada winning the inaugural Women's World Cup of Golf. 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 twenty in 2005, Miyazato became the youngest player on the JLPGA Tour to win a major. Furthering the notion that Miyazato has revived the JLPGA Tour after the retirement of Ayako Okamoto, over 32,000 people (the largest gallery ever to attend a JLPGA event) witnessed the final day of that tournament.

She dominated the U.S. LPGA Q-School and secured her tour card, enabling her to compete in the 2006 season. She finished under par for five of the six qualifying rounds, and finished 12 strokes ahead of the closest competitor, setting a record for the largest margin of victory on December 4, 2005. Back in Japan, on December 15, 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.

She has endorsements deals with Suntory, Bridgestone, Japan Airlines, Oakley, Paradiso & Hisamitsu among others.

Her older brother, Yūsaku Miyazato is also a professional golfer.

Ai Miyazato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia