RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Brittany Lincicome shot a 6-under-par 66 yesterday to take the lead in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA’s first major of the year.

Angela Stanford was a stroke back on the Mission Hills Country Club course, tied with Ji Young Oh and Brittany Lang.
Two gallery favorites, Michelle Wie and Lorena Ochoa, struggled early. Ochoa, the defending champion, got off to an uncharacteristically poor start with a 1-over 73. Three years ago, Ochoa opened with a 62 at Mission Hills to tie an LPGA major championship record.
Wie needed a 20-foot birdie putt on her final hole to record a 71. She missed fairways, particularly early on, and could have been 4 or 5 strokes over, but her short game saved her.
Wie is back at Mission Hills for the first time since 2006, when she had a chance to win the Kraft Nabisco with a 25-foot eagle chip from just off the 18th green. It went 10 feet by the hole, and she missed the birdie putt, then lost in a playoff.
The 19-year-old Stanford sophomore, still seeking her first tour victory, is making her third start since earning her LPGA card.
Last year at Mission Hills, Ochoa won her second straight major. She finished with a 5-under 67 to beat Suzann Pettersen and Annika Sorenstam by 5 strokes.
PGA Tour
HUMBLE, Texas – The first round of the Shell Houston Open was suspended because of high winds. Half of the 72-player field teed off before play was halted for the day in mid-afternoon. The round on the Tournament Course at the Redstone Golf Club will resume today.
European Tour
CASCAIS, Portugal – Ross McGowan of England equaled his lowest European Tour score, shooting a 7-under 64 to lead the Estoril Open by 2 shots over Michael Hoey of Northern Ireland.
McGowan, who won the English amateur in 2006 and has never won on tour, beat windy conditions at Oitavos Dunes Club. Hoey, a former British amateur champion, eagled the 573-yard, par-5 16th.
Posting 67s were Spain’s Carlos del Moral, England’s Simon Dyson, and Scotland’s Alastair Forsyth, who lost in a three-man playoff last year.
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