Associated Press
Wednesday, March 22

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- The pressure is off Karrie Webb.

	Dottie Pepper won her second career major at last year's Nabisco.

After her bid to become the first golfer in 22 years to win four consecutive LPGA tournaments ended with a second-place finish last week, Webb can focus on the $1.25 million Nabisco Championship, the year's first LPGA major.

"By not winning, the attention probably is a little bit less," Webb said Wednesday.

But the challenge is huge.

Last year, Dottie Pepper demolished the Mission Hills Country Club course with a tournament record 19-under-par total and six-stroke victory over Meg Mallon.

So officials toughened up the 6,520-yard, par-72 course, narrowing fairways and moving tees back.

"I don't think you're going to see those scores again this year," Webb said. "You're going to have to be very patient. You're going to have to try and hit a lot of fairways and hit a lot of greens, because the rough is a lot longer."

Webb has played 13 of 15 rounds under par this year, tops on the tour. Her 69.33 scoring average is slightly behind Annika Sorenstam's leading 69.21.

Webb tees off Thursday in pursuit of her fifth victory this season. She won her first four tournaments, including one in a non-LPGA event.

"I'm sure she's like me, the majors mean a lot and that's where you make the history," said Sorenstam, who won two weeks ago in Tucson, Ariz., and finished third last week in Phoenix, where her younger sister, Charlotta, won.

Webb won her only major last year in the du Maurier Classic. Her best finish in the Nabisco was a third-place tie last year.

"Hopefully, I can take a little bit of my experience with du Maurier and put it to this week, sort of the never-say-die attitude and know that I can put together low rounds on tough golf courses and just try and stay patient," Webb said.

Annika Sorenstam is in search of four solid rounds in the Nabisco. She tied for second in '96 after a double-bogey on the 18th in the third round "pretty much cost me the whole tournament."

"This course demands everything," she said. "I see it as a big challenge."

A new wall of champions has been installed along the 18th green, with bronze plaques listing the names and winning totals of 28 previous champions.

"I really want to put my name on one of those plaques," said Sorenstam, a two-time U.S. Open champion. "This tournament really means a lot to me, because it's got the history behind it."

Also motivating her is afall from first to fourth on the money list last year, when she struggled with her putting. Webb took over the top spot with earnings of more than $1.5 million, breaking Sorenstam's 1998 record.

"That kind of got me fired up. I worked really hard this winter," Sorenstam said. "My goal is to try and beat Karrie and get back to No. 1."

Pepper sees Webb and Sorenstam tearing up the tour, and she wants a part of it, too.

"The stretch Karrie's had since she came out on tour in '96, no one has touched, especially over the last 15 months," Pepper said. "You need to worry about elevating your own standards to what you think is great competitive golf, and that's where I'm at, knowing that I can play better."

The 102-player field includes 13-year-old twin sisters Aree and Naree Song Wongluekiet, who'll be the second-youngest ever to play in an LPGA tournament.

The amateurs from Thailand, who now live in Bradenton, Fla., combined to win nine junior tournaments in the final six months of 1999.

"They're not like any other 13-year-olds. They have a lot of game," Sorenstam said.

Other big names in the field include Juli Inkster, Se Ri Pak, Nancy Lopez and Laura Davies. Inkster is looking for her third Nabisco win, while Lopez was victorious in 1981, two years before the tournament was designated a major.