Hikaru Yoshimoto

From Shiga Prefecture, she started on her path to golf at the age of 9. During her junior high years, she represented Japan in the girls' 13-14 age group at the IMG Academy World Junior Golf Championship in 2012 and 2013, participating two years in a row. In 2013, she made her LPGA Tour debut at the Fujisankei Ladies Classic but did not make it through the qualifying round. However, from December 2015, she trained under Toshiyasu Nakajima and in 2016 challenged the Step-Up Tour's "Route Inn Cup Ueda Maruko Grandvilio Ladies" as an amateur, achieving a historic victory. In 2017, she successfully passed the LPGA's final professional test in 7th place, becoming a member of the 89th class of the LPGA. In October of that year, she won her first professional Step-Up Tour event at the "Japan-Taiwan Exchange Udon Prefecture Ladies Golf Tournament."

In 2019, after finishing 21st in the previous year's Final Qualifying Tournament, she secured participation rights for the first half of the LPGA Tour. She ranked 4th in the "1st Re-ranking" and 5th in the "2nd Re-ranking," securing participation rights for the entire year and earning her first seed rights with a 28th place finish in the annual money rankings. In 2023, at the "Meiji Yasuda Life Ladies Yokohama Tire Golf Tournament," she started the final day in the final group as the sole leader. Although she maintained the lead until the end, she eventually tied with Shoko Sasaki at -19 under, leading to a playoff between the two. On the second hole of the playoff, she made a birdie, securing her first professional tour victory and achieving the remarkable feat of becoming the 12th member of her golden generation to do so.