PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Nasa Hataoka won her first national championship, the Japan Women's Open, when she was 17 years old, and she's been playing full-time on the LPGA Tour since she was 18. She's been a runner-up in two majors already; so even though she's only 24 years old, it almost seems as though she's due -- or maybe even overdue -- to win a major.
It could happen this weekend. The six-time LPGA winner shot a 6-under-par 66 at the venerable Pebble Beach Golf Links on Saturday, a day when no one else broke 70, and as a result, she's 7 under at 209 after 54 holes, and will take a one-stroke lead into Sunday's final round of the 2023 U.S. Women's Open. Allisen Corpuz, 25, another golf prodigy -- she qualified for the U.S. Women's Public Links Championship when she was 10 years old -- is in second place, one stroke behind after shooting 71.
On Friday, Bailey Tardy, who is No. 455 in the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings, shot 68 and grabbed a two-stroke lead. She still has a chance to win, but now the 26-year-old former University of Georgia All-American is tied for third, along with Hyo Joo Kim, three behind at 212 after a 75. Kim shot 73.
Hataoka and Corpuz, unlike Tardy, don't look like longshots to win. Hataoka is No. 20 in the Rolex Rankings, and she has already come close to winning the Women's Open. In 2021, she shot a final-round 67 and tied for first, only to lose to Yuka Saso in a playoff. (Saso won with a birdie on the third exta hole.) Corpuz, a former All-American at USC, didn't turn professional until the fall of 2021, but she's ranked No. 29, and although she hasn't won yet on the LPGA Tour, she's got a top-5 finish in a major this year. It came at the Chevron Championship, where she led going into the final round and ended up tied for fourth, two shots behind the winner, Lilia Vu, who beat Angel Yin in a playoff. Coprpuz has made $481,309 on the 2023 LPGA Tour, compared with $37,438 for Tardy.
In 2000, Tiger Woods won the men's U.S. Open by 15 shots at Pebble Beach, and NBC announcer Roger Maltbie famously concluded, "It's not a fair fight."
There was an element of that on Saturday, as Hataoka cruised around the course without making a bogey, and everyone else struggled. She made the first of her six birdies on the 344-yard, par-4 first hole. At the 496-yard, par-5 sixth, she was in a bunker in a two, but blasted out to within 5 feet and made the putt for a birdie. She made putts in the 15- to 20-foot range for her birdies at the 10th and 13th holes, then chipped in at the 16th and made a 12-footer for yet another birdie at the 175-yard, par-3 17th.
Corpuz could have been tied at the end of the day if she hadn't been unlucky at the par-5 18th. She and Tardy were playing together, and they both hit lay-up shots too far left. Both went into the monstrously long bunker that separates the 18th fairway from the Pacific Ocean, but Tardy's ball ended up in a perfect lie, and Corpuz's ball plugged in the sand. Tardy, who qualified for the Women's Open at Somerset CC -- and won. a playoff with a birdie on the fourth extra hole to get the last available spot -- was left with a fairly simple third shot to the green, and she just missed a 20-foot putt for birdie. Corpuz had no choice except to blast out of the bunker with a wedge, and she wound up with a bogey.
U.S. Women's Open
At Pebble Beach Golf Links
Par 72, 6,546 yards
Pebble Beach, Calif.
Third-round results
1. Nasa Hataoka 69-74-66--209 (-7)
2. Allisen Corpuz 69-70-71--210
T3. Bailey Tardy 69-68-75--212
T3. Hyo Joo Kim 68-71-73--212
T5. Hae Ran Ryu 69-72-73--214
T5. Jiyai Shin 71-73-70--214
T7. Angel Yin 71-73-72--216
T7. Charliey Hull 73-72-71--216
T9. Rose Zhang 74-71-72--217
T9. Maja Stark 72-73-72--217
T9. Minjee Lee 72-73-72--217
T9. Ayaka Furure 74-70-73--217
Missed cut -- 150
Amy Olson 79-77--156
Contact Us
Have a question about the Minnesota Golf Association, your MGA membership or the contents of this website? Let us help.
