Meet the Girls: Japanese rising star Haru Nomura
Haru Nomura fact file
Name: Haru Nomura
Date of birth: 25/11/1992
Place of birth: Yokohama
Nationality: Japanese
Height: 5’4″
Turned professional: 2010
About Haru Nomura
Rising LPGA star Haru Nomura is the highest ranking Japanese golfer in the women’s world rankings.
The high-flying 23-year-old is 20th in the official Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, 27 places ahead of compatriot Ai Suzuki.
She started playing golf at the age of 11. In 2007, she won the Japan Junior Golf Championship for girls between the ages of 12 and 14.
She was the low amateur at the 2009 Japan Open and in December 2010 she turned professional.
Nomura qualified for the LPGA Tour on her first attempt, finishing tied for 39th at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament to earn Priority List Category 20 for the 2011 season.
Her first professional victory came on the LPGA Futures Tour, now known as the Symetra Tour, in April 2011 at the Daytona Beach Invitational.
Just a month later she added another piece of silverware, this time the Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open on the LPGA of Japan Tour.
In 2014, she made the cut 23 times in the 26 events she entered, including a hole-in-one during the second round of the Marathon Classic.
It took four years for her third win to arrive, which was a victory in the 2015 Hanwha Finance Classic on the LPGA of Korea Tour.
In February this year, Nomura held off world No 1 Lydia Ko to win her first LPGA tournament, the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, the first Japanese victory on the LPGA Tour since Mika Miyazato won the Safeway Classic in 2012.
She added the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic to her trophy cabinet in April, pipping Lee-Anne Pace by four strokes.
Nomura just missed out on an Olympic medal this summer when she finished in three-way tie for fourth place in Rio.
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