Given how well Nasa Hataoka has been playing of late and how well she scores around Tiburón Golf Club, it should be no surprise that she came into the 2025 LPGA season finale ready to launch.

Hataoka, who broke a three-year winless drought two weeks ago at the TOTO Japan Classic, fired her second 5-under 67 of the week on Friday in Naples, Fla. to sit at 10-under total – just four back of Jeeno Thitikul’s 36-hole lead.

Hataoka has been doing all the right things through the summertime and early fall and certainly loves the host club of the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. Case in point: she has two runner-up results at this event in the last four seasons, and in 2023, her 24-under 264 total would have won every single CME Group Tour Championship contested at Tiburón Golf Club, except for that one, where Amy Yang set all kinds of records.

But the Japan native is also very much trending heading into the final event of the 2025 campaign on the LPGA Tour. Her victory at the rain-shortened TOTO Japan Classic came just two weeks after she finished runner-up at the BMW Ladies Championship. The 26-year-old has recorded eight top-10 finishes on the season, and six of them have come since mid-August.

Hataoka said she’s felt “more confident” coming into the season finale, given how well she’s played of late. The TOTO Japan Classic victory was a happy one, she said, but because of the weather shortening that event to just 54 holes – plus a playoff where tournament officials crafted a par 3 out of a par 5 due to extremely wet conditions – she was eager to tee it up alongside the best players in women’s golf.

“I really want to win this tournament just because all the top 60 players playing this week,” she said. “It's going to be low score every year, so trying to keep positive and trying to hit every single shot (well).”

Hataoka is part of a hearty group of global stars all trying to chase down the game’s No.1-ranked player in Thitikul, which, of course, will not be an easy task. The Thai superstar fired a second round 9-under 63, the low round of the week so far.

The Republic of Korea’s Sei Young Kim is in second, while Australia (Minjee Lee), Canada (Brooke Henderson), and the United States (Nelly Korda) are also all represented in the top five on the leaderboard heading into the weekend.

Like Hataoka, Henderson said that it’s been easy to rely on past experience to have success at Tiburón Golf Club.

“I definitely feel more comfortable here now than I did the first couple of years. I think knowing the course a little bit better and understanding the stage a little bit more. It's definitely more comfortable this year, which I think is a really good thing,” Henderson said. “But it's a very exciting week and I'm grateful for the opportunity, and hopefully, just finish strong the next two days. It's going to take some low scores to catch the leaders.”

Hataoka has plenty of experience trying to chase down the leaders at the CME Group Tour Championship and points to 2021 as her favorite memory of this event.

That year, she and then-Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 Jin Young Ko had a Sunday to remember. Ko fired a 9-under 63 while Hataoka very nearly matched her with an 8-under 64, falling just one back of Ko’s winning score as she successfully defended her title from the previous year.

“Fun memory,” Hataoka said.

Now the seven-time LPGA Tour winner needs another low weekend to take down another No.1-ranked star. And all systems are a go with that goal in mind.

Nasa Hataoka is Ready for Launch Heading Into the Weekend at CME Group Tour Championship

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