LPGA Tour rookie Rio Takeda carded an 8-under-par 64 on Sunday to cruise to a six-stroke victory at the Blue Bay LPGA on Hainan Island, China.
Takeda, 21, captured her second LPGA Tour title after recording a bogey-free round to finish 17-under 271 at the Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Course. The Japanese native won her initial LPGA Tour title at the 2024 Toto Japan Classic following a six-hole sudden-death playoff as a non-tour member.
"I'm really happy with this," said Takeda, who pocketed $375 000 for the first-place finish.
"Really happy to win this tournament because the course layout, it's really, really different. Like compared to Japanese course. So I had so many winning at the JLPGA but this winning is meaningful."
Takeda birdied three of the first four holes and four of the final six to keep a comfortable cushion over the field.
Australian Minjee Lee benefited from her third chip-in eagle of the tournament to shoot a 67 on Sunday and finish in second place at 11-under, one stroke ahead of Japan's Ayaka Furue (68).
"I chipped in four times, so that's obviously going to help," Lee said. "I think I made three eagles and a birdie chip-in, so, yeah, no, that's always nice to see it go in. You know, I think for most of the week I was hitting it pretty solid. Just try to capitalise on the shots that I hit close. It's quite hard if you're not on the right sections of the greens here, so I did have a few putts over hills. Other than that, nice week this week."
Australian Cassie Porter shot an even-par 72 on Sunday to finish in fourth place at 7-under, one shot ahead of a three-golfer contingent. Included in that group was Sarah Schmelzel (69), who recorded her second straight top-five finish at Blue Bay.
"Obviously really good vibes coming into it from last year," she said. "Knew I could play well on this golf course, which always helps. You know, I hadn't played my best over in Asia, so I had had spurts of some good stuff going on the last two weeks over here, and I was just hoping that it could come together this week. I made a lot more putts this week than I did the last couple weeks over here, and, yeah, it was just nice to play again at a course that I've played well at before and just take that confidence."