Nicely Done

Carin Koch (left) returned to her old form and shared the first-round lead; Tseng's runner-up finish was her fourth top-10 in seven LPGA starts as a pro.

Ochoa took a one-stroke lead into the final round but surrendered it on the first hole and fell into second place on the second hole. Undeterred, she birdied the third hole and reeled off successive birdies at Nos. 8, 9 and 10 that propelled her to a victory that was not as effortless as recent ones. The toll of four consecutive weeks in contention and its inherent demands was showing; Ochoa is a dedicated fitness buff, whose evening jogs went from 35 minutes Wednesday and Thursday, to 28 minutes Friday, to zero minutes Saturday.

"You can just put it down that I made it," she said after crossing the finish line Sunday afternoon. "I survived. I was tired, mentally and physically. I didn't have many legs at the end. I kept thinking, 'I'm tired, but in a few more minutes I'll be done.' "

Ochoa's attitude was the lesson Tseng took away from her 18 holes with Ochoa Sunday. When she wasn't preparing to hit her own shot, her eyes never left Ochoa, searching the minutiae of the pre-shot routine and post-shot reaction for clues to her genius. "She's very patient," Tseng said. "When she misses a putt, she still has a very good attitude and very good body language."

Nine consecutive rounds in the 60s (including scores of 68, 67, 65 and 69 here) tend to keep one's attitude buoyed. Ochoa's dominance has been so thorough that her season earnings of $1,635,550 is more than double the second player on the money list, Sorenstam ($614,281). She leads the tour in driving distance and greens in regulation and delivers the payoff with her marksmanship with the putter, deft inside 20 feet. She bettered the tournament record here by seven strokes.

"She hits it long, and I don't think I've ever seen anybody hole as many 15- to 18-footers as she makes," said Inkster, who played two rounds with Ochoa at the Safeway International outside Phoenix last month. "When Annika was number one, she hit 18 greens, always hit it close, made a few putts. Lorena's got so much imagination. She's very artistic out there. She's a phenomenal shotmaker."

She stalks victory with a chilling efficiency that belies an innate warmth, suggesting a player as likely to befriend you as beat you. "I always want to take everybody down," she said. "I think you can do it with a smile on your face and be nice and talking to them. You don't have to be mean or rude."

Her performance predictably has evoked comparisons with Tiger Woods, by which Ochoa is flattered, but it is a comparison she is unwilling to make herself. Yet the Grand Slam that Woods was pursuing on the men's side is alive for Ochoa on the women's side, one leg (the Kraft Nabisco Championship) already down. "I know I can do it," she said. "I believe in myself."

It remains a long shot without a compelling argument as to why, other than noting that only two of her 22 victories have come in majors. That said, this is clearly Ochoa's era now, the evidence poignantly apparent at the eighth green and ninth tee one moment early Sunday afternoon. Sorenstam, who started on the back nine, stood in the eighth fairway, while ahead of her Ochoa holed an eight-foot birdie putt to regain the lead for good. She then made her way to the ninth tee, escorted by the throngs that once belonged to Annika, before Ochoa learned how to win and methodically began to distance herself from the rest of the LPGA.

The distance, incidentally, is substantial, however you measure it -- in miles or smiles.