The wedge she had never hit won her first LPGA title.

Yuri Yoshida won her first LPGA title with a pitching wedge from a bunker on the par-5 17th at Pine Beach Golf Links in Haenam. The pin was about 48 yards away, and she said she had never hit that club from that distance. “Actually, I didn’t have confidence,” she said at the winner’s press conference. “But I thought, just hit, just hit, it’s the perfect distance.” It left her a birdie, and she does not think she could hit the shot again.

She started Sunday four shots behind South Korea’s Haeran Ryu. Yoshida was 13 under after rounds of 66, 69, and 68. Ryu came in at 17 under, ranked No. 3 in the world. She had won the Women’s PGA Championship and the Evian Championship this summer, and a win in Haenam would have been her first LPGA title at home. Yoshida eagled the par-5 second. Birdies at the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh put her alone in the lead, at 18 under.

A bogey at the 15th brought Ryu level. The wedge from the sand at 17 put Yoshida two ahead, and Ryu was still on the course behind her when Yoshida three-putted the 18th. She signed for a 68, and for 17-under 271. That was enough, by one shot.

Ryu shot 73. From a greenside bunker on the 18th she had the putt for the par that would have forced a playoff, and she left it short. Hye-Jin Choi, in her 125th LPGA start, had a birdie putt on the same hole to force a playoff. It lipped out. Choi has made about $7.5 million on the tour without a win, more than any other winless player. The week before, in Shanghai, Choi had finished second. Yoshida was tied for 10th there, two under, after opening 75-74 and closing 67-70. First place in Haenam paid $352,500, from a purse of $2.35 million.

Yoshida said she had been nervous all day, because Ryu is that good, and that the win was a very big one for her. She did not look at the leaderboard much. The rain took the bounce out of the course, so she played for the carry, and she said that was where the birdies came from. It was heavy enough that the trophy ceremony moved indoors, and she answered in English.

She said a dream had come true. She had played the Japan tour for four years, and then she came to America. Her goal is to win tournaments, she said, and she wants more than this one. She already had two Japan-tour titles by May 2023. That month she won the Salonpas Cup, a Japanese major, in the rain at the Ibaraki Golf Club. She finished the week one over par, three shots clear of South Korea’s Jiyai Shin, who was once No. 1 in the world. “I predicted my third career win would come at a special tournament, and it did,” she said that day. In March 2025 she won on the Japan tour again, a fourth title, and by then she was already on the LPGA.

She joined this tour in 2024. She is 26, from Ichikawa in Chiba. In that first season she played 16 events and made the cut seven times. The best of those weekends was a tie for fifth at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii. Most of those 16 weeks ended on Friday. The first win on this tour came in her third season.

In Haenam she played all four rounds with someone from the Korean women’s tour, and the distance they were hitting it surprised her. She said that kind of distance means they practice every day, and that she wants to keep up. She has known Korean players since she was young and on national teams, and she said getting the first LPGA win in Korea was special. She would like to win there again. She plays the round with a straight face, and she was smiling by the time she reached the 18th green, where the players she knew from Japan were waiting. She was glad they had waited.