The burden of expectation is an enormous weight to lug around a golf course, especially when magnified by the hopeful cheers of thousands of fans in his home country. Sunday, for Nasa Hataoka, it was much more than a match under pressure, finishing with a score of 67, crowned by a birdie on the last hole, she knew how to meet the expectations by winning the TOTO Japan Classic by two strokes of 'advanced.

LPGA: Hataoka wins home victory at TOTO Japan Classic

Photo: DR

19-year-old Hataoka joins Rolex Player of the Year and Brooke Henderson among the multiple LPGA winners this year, adding the TOTO title to the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, Ariya Jutanugarn and Sung Hyun Park. presented by P&G in June, continuing a fierce sprint towards the finish line this season.

After a slow start to 2018, in which Hataoka was not ranked in the top 10 of her first seven tournaments, she now maintains a top 10 in her last 16 appearances and her name is in the top five, with Rolex Player of the Year points and the Race to the CME Globe, she is in contention for the $ 1 million bonus ending at the end of the season while still placing 10th on average.

Hataoka started the last round four strokes behind Minjee Lee, who was three strokes ahead of the field after the first 36 holes of the three-round event. But Nasa scored 32 points in the standings out of the nine to go and, after bogeyys on holes 11 and 12, played the last six clear holes to secure the victory.

"I am so proud to be able to win this event"said Hataoka about his victory in his country. “I actually wanted to win this tournament before it started. I'm really happy to accomplish this. "

When asked how she left the back-to-back bogeys behind at the start of the last nine holes, she said: “I realize that something has to come to me and I had to get through, and I knew it was on the 13th hole. I wasn't totally comfortable with the hitting, but I was calm enough to play well on that hole. "

She stabilized by making the par at number 13 and put things back together with a birdie at number 14. Her birdie at number 18 was the icing on a cake that was not yet fully baked when she played. the last hole. But there was no way she would let this tournament slip away.

This brilliant final left Hataoka at 202 (-14), two strokes before Spain's Carlota Ciganda and Japan's Momoko Ueda and Saki Nagamine. Rolex Rookie of the Year winners Jin Young Ko and Ji-Hee Lee were at 205 and Amy Yang at 206.

Few would have predicted it at the start of the season, but Hataoka will show up at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla. And sit in fourth place on the points list, with a chance to win that million dollars. - which would be 113 yen. And that would make a very nice end of year party for her.