{"id":16372,"date":"2025-08-18T00:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=16372"},"modified":"2025-08-18T00:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T00:13:11","slug":"akie-iwai-wins-portland-classic-joins-sister-as-rookie-lpga-tour-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=16372","title":{"rendered":"Akie Iwai wins Portland Classic, joins sister as rookie LPGA Tour champ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<br \/><span class=\"timestamp \">Aug 17, 2025, 07:36 PM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>PORTLAND, Ore. &#8212; Akie Iwai joined twin sister Chisato as a rookie LPGA Tour winner Sunday at Columbia Edgewater, closing with a 6-under 66 for a four-stroke victory in The Standard Portland Classic.<\/p>\n<p>Akie Iwai capped the bogey-free round with birdies on the final two holes, running in an 18-footer on the last before Chisato rushed on the green and sprayed her with champagne.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old Japanese player broke through in her first season on the LPGA Tour after winning six times on the JLPGA Tour.<\/p>\n<p>She had second-place finishes in Thailand in February and Los Angeles in April, then watched her sister win at Mayakoba in May in Mexico. On Sunday, Chisato Iwai shot a 64 to tie for third, five strokes back.<\/p>\n<p>The winner finished at 24-under 264 on the tree-lined course. She opened with consecutive 67s, then shot a 64 on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead into the final round.<\/p>\n<p>American Gurleen Kaur was a career-best second, closing with a 65. Linn Grant of Sweden had a 67 to join Chisato Iwai at 19 under. Grace Kim of Australia was 18 under after a 70.<\/p>\n<p>Amateur Kiara Romero shot a 64 to tie for seventh at 16 under in her first tour start. The University of Oregon player won the 2023 U.S. Girls&#8217; Junior and 2025 Big Ten title.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It feels great to just play really well my first LPGA event,&#8221; Romero said.&#8221; Kind of gives me a lot of confidence going into the school year&#8230; All the Ducks fans are out here. So, we had a big crowd and a lot of people cheering me on, so it meant a lot to put a good week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The tournament is the longest continuous event on the LPGA Tour except for the majors, dating to 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aug 17, 2025, 07:36 PM ET PORTLAND, Ore. &#8212; Akie Iwai joined twin sister Chisato as a rookie LPGA Tour winner Sunday at Columbia Edgewater, closing with a 6-under 66 for a four-stroke victory in The Standard Portland Classic. Akie Iwai capped the bogey-free round with birdies on the final two holes, running in an<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[9733,9737,7238,9734,2112,9736,8053,5444,9735,2143,1975],"class_list":{"0":"post-16372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-akie","9":"tag-champ","10":"tag-classic","11":"tag-iwai","12":"tag-joins","13":"tag-lpga","14":"tag-portland","15":"tag-rookie","16":"tag-sister","17":"tag-tour","18":"tag-wins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}