RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. » Frustration is relative, especially in a game as quirky as golf.

A week ago, Michelle Wie could not make a putt and did not come close to making the cut at the Kia Classic.

On Thursday, Wie could not make a putt and shot 73 in the LPGA’s first major.

The Punahou and Stanford graduate is seven shots behind leader Amy Yang after the opening round of the 41st Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Only 10 players shot in the 60s on a beautiful day where the LPGA dealt with no weather conditions. That leaves Wie right in the mix.

She had one birdie on Mission Hills’ front nine and two bogeys on the back in a round that looked routine after last week’s meltdown.

It really wasn’t. Wie hit just five fairways, including the last three, and needed 33 putts. She extracted herself from lots of trouble, but missed six putts within 10 feet and three-putted the 17th from 12, whiffing a two-footer for par.

"It’s just a major tournament," Wie shrugged, after she had several minutes and a Golf Channel interview to ponder it. "In the whole scheme of things, I only made two bogeys today. It was just the lack of birdies. I missed a couple chances. It was a good first day. I’m not exactly where I wanted to be, but I can work my way past it."

That is more than she could say last week at the Kia, where she shot 77-79. Wie was in control Thursday. She hit 14 greens in regulation. Her misses were not by much and her tenacity was admirable.

But she still had little confidence on the greens and it clearly is affecting other parts of her game.

When she left two very makeable putts short on her first two holes on the back nine, the whispers in her gallery grew louder. People want to know what’s wrong.

She was in the top 20 on the scoreboard at the time.

Wie remained composed — almost placid — until she hit it to 8 feet on the 16th hole and her birdie putt broke two ways and stayed out.

She shook her head. When she jabbed the 2-footer on the next hole, she shook it harder, walked to her bag and dropped the putter on it with a loud "Aaaaaargh."

"That was pretty frustrating, a really stupid mistake," Wie said. "But it felt good comparing where I was last week and how I finished today. I was so much more comfortable out there today, especially with my shots and everything. It’s a good place to start."

Wie took out her anger on the 18th tee, blasting her drive 100 yards past playing partner Sandra Gal. Wie still laid up on the par-5 and could not get up and down from the other side of the water to get back to par.

Wie, 22 years old and ranked 21st in the world after playing part-time the past five years, has four top-10 finishes here. She was sixth a year ago.

This is one of her favorite places and she is in a great place emotionally, coming off the high of finishing her college finals.

Now, if she could just find comfort on the putting green. She was practicing there with coach David Leadbetter the moment interviews ended. She was on the range 30 minutes later.

Leadbetter believes it will all come around now that she can focus solely on golf. Wie believes her biggest problem is that she is simply trying too hard.

It is a hard habit to break.

"I could try less a little more," she admitted Thursday. "I felt myself trying too hard again."

Whatever it takes to get it in the hole.