Wie duck-hooked her opening drive, fortunate it didn't go onto the practice range, but she saved par with a 10-foot putt. More fortune was on her side at No. 2, when another drive tugged to the left hopped along the rocks framing the lake, then took one last bounce into the rough. That didn't help, though, because the next shot looked like a sharp grounder to second base.

And on the next hole, she pulled another shot into the water and made an 8-foot putt to escape with bogey.

The worst tee shot came at No. 5, yanked some 40 yards left of the fairway into a creek next to the seventh green. That led to double bogey, and she picked up another double bogey on the sixth by twice clipping the palm trees.

And on the par-5 ninth, she sliced it so badly it went off the property and into a canal.

Q-school grad Stephen Marino (68) and Gavin Coles of Australia (71) both suggested that her right wrist might have been hurting Wie more than she let one. Wie has had it wrapped tightly each day, and said she has been going through acupuncture.

"I don't know that her wrist was doing her any good," Coles said. "I think she's not letting people know that it's hurting. But she's got a nice short game. She managed very, very well. She has a nice head on her shoulders."

Wie said she hurt the wrist while hitting off a cart path at the Samsung World Championship in October, and it hasn't healed. She does not know if it's tendons or ligaments causing the pain, but she did not dwell on it.

"Every kind of injury hurts a little bit. It's always in the back of your mind," Wie said. "But it is what it is, and I'm not going to make any excuses. It hurt a little bit, but it is what it is."

She didn't make a birdie until a 6-iron through out of the rough and through a gap in the palm trees to 15 feet on No. 12. Her other birdie came on the par-3 17th, where she hit 5-iron into 18 feet.

Playing the back in even par allowed Wie to end a dubious streak of three straight rounds in the 80s competing against the men. She opened with a 79 last year, then followed with a 68 to match her record as the lowest score by a woman on the PGA Tour.

And she still believes that's possible.

She attributed her poor driving to a careless mistake in her setup, which she did not want to describe.

"If I just get everything right, get the ball in the fairway - get the ball anywhere in play, actually - I think I can definitely tear this golf course up," she said.

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