Wie did it in front of the PGA Tour and the world in January, when she whacked the ball all over Waialae Country Club and still made history by becoming the first woman to break par (2-under 68) in a men's tour event.

She did it again yesterday in the LPGA's first major of the year. The Punahou freshman went more than an hour without hitting a fairway off the tee and still shot 3-under 69. She is tied for seventh going into today's second round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course in Mission Hills Country Club.

Aree Song, the youngest member of the LPGA at 17, leads after opening with a 66. Of her six birdie putts, only one was more than six feet. Song is playing in her fifth Kraft Nabisco. In her first appearance, as 13-year-old amateur Aree Wongluekiet in 2000, she tied for 10th.

"I guess it's about time I out-do my performance," said Song, who changed to her father's name two years ago.

Wie remembers watching Song way back then.

"I was like, 'It's so awesome, she's playing out there, she's so young, she's so good,' " Wie recalled. "Yeah, I mean, it was like I was a big fan of hers back then. Her last name was a 'W' — Wongluekiet. Tiger Woods was a 'W.' I'm like, 'Hey, I'm a 'W,' too. I can be like them.' "

All three have proven to be originals. The latest addition to Wie's precocious game is patience.

She played the first eight holes in 2-under yesterday, hitting every green in regulation, draining birdie putts of six and 15 feet and never flirting with danger.

Then Wie took her 3-wood out on the ninth tee and hooked the ball dead into a eucalyptus tree. She would blame it later on the three degrees of loft missing from last year, when she hit 4-wood over the trees on the way to a ninth-place finish.

Her ball never reached the fairway. She grabbed a water bottle and started chatting placidly with playing partner Stephanie Louden.

From the rough, Wie punched a 5-iron through the fairway, punched another 60 yards short of the green, then "chunked" a wedge shot into the slope next to the bunker fronting the green. She hit within five feet to salvage bogey.

She called her lone bogey a "good bogey" after "two bad shots." Her relentless optimism paid dividends.

After blowing the ball some 60 yards by Louden and Carin Koch all morning, Wie's vaunted big game suddenly started to unravel. She hooked tees shots on the next three holes, then pushed it on the 13th. She still parred every hole.

Wie one-putted every green she missed in regulation yesterday and emerged all but unscathed from her driving difficulties when she split the 15th fairway. She crushed the ball some 300 yards on the 16th and birdied that and the closing hole with birdie putts inside nine feet.

Just what the swing doctor ordered.

"Our goals this year are high, of course," said Wie's coach, Gary Gilchrist, while he watched from outside the ropes. "But we also want her to learn how to shoot a number, keep her score around par when everything is not going perfectly. Because that's not going to happen very often.

"Hitting it long and straight is nice, but a lot of 66s have been shot by golfers who hit only 60 percent of the fairways."

Lots of 69s, too, by those who hit 36 percent of the fairways, as Wie did yesterday. But rarely have prodigies with prodigious swings — one man told his wife yesterday to wait until Wie hit so she could see "the perfect swing" — discovered how to salvage a score when the golf gods are out to get them.

Michelle Wie acknowledges the gallery after parring the par-4 sixth hole in the first round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

"I feel more mature out there. ... I think that's the difference from last year. I mean, last year if I went into the rough, I just tried to, like, hit it so hard, tried to hit, like, a high shot. But I can't. It's impossible. So this year I know, like, the outcome of what's going to happen."

Wie described her swing "problem" as "taking it too deep so I had those hookers again." It was the only problem she appeared to face during a 5-hour-plus round in humid 85-degree weather, with a backdrop of smog so thick you couldn't see the nearby mountains.

"It's really not that hot when you're playing good," Wie said. "It feels a lot more worse when you're playing bad."

It was, she admitted, much like that final round at the Sony Open in Hawai'i in January. "Sony, second round, my swing was so terrible I couldn't hit the ball at all," Wie said. "I fought through it. I think that's the difference from last year. I'm just grinding it out."

Grinding lemons into lemonade.