KAHUKU — Call it "Survivor: SBS Open at Turtle Bay."

"Oh, it was blowing hard. There were holes out there that it was difficult. It was very windy," said Paula Creamer, the last player standing in the LPGA Tour's season opener at the windswept Palmer Course on O'ahu's North Shore.

Creamer survived a roller-coaster, final-round 70 during which she once enjoyed a five-shot lead to win by one stroke over Julieta Granada, one of only two players to shoot in the 60s, on a day when the gusts were unrelenting.

"Overall, I'll take a 3-under 69 anytime," said Granada, who gave Creamer a good run for the first-place money of $165,000. Especially on a day when only she and Se Ri Pak were able to to do it.

The windy conditions gave a good dose of reality to Sherri Steinhauer and Morgan Pressel, who shared the lead with Creamer going into yesterday's final round.

Pressel shot a 74 to finish in a three-way tie for fourth, while Steinhauer wound up tied for eighth after coming in with a 76.

"The conditions were difficult. I give Paula a lot of credit," Pressel said.

"It was howling out there. The conditions were really, really difficult. The wind was really gusting," added Steinhauer. "Unfortunately, I made two bad swings at seven and nine and it really cost me."

The one at the par-4 seventh led to a double bogey that quickly eliminated Steinhauer's chances when Creamer made her fourth straight birdie.

"I misjudged the shot completely. I hit it how I wanted. I thought it was downwind but the wind didn't take it. It knocked it down and it ended up in the water," said Steinhauer, who won the Women's British Open last year under equally windy conditions.

But it's more difficult here, according to Steinhauer.

"The difference is that it gusts more here. At the British Open the wind is more constant whatever direction it's going in and you can rely on it. You're guessing a lot out here. You can't rely on it here."

A good example of the vagaries of the wind was Granada eagling the same seventh hole from 150 yards with a 9-iron.

"You are looking at shots and hitting 5-irons from 150 yards and I hit my 5-iron almost 170," Creamer said.

Even though Creamer played the front in 4-under 32, the more exposed front nine played extremely difficult because of the wind, in particular, the par-4, 376-yard second hole.

Dead into the wind, No. 2 was No. 1-ranked as the most difficult of the day with a 4.576 scoring average. Only Jimin Kang, one of the 85 players who survived Friday's cut, was able to birdie it yesterday.

Creamer's winning score of 9-under 207 was quite a contrast from Fred Funk's record-setting 23-under 193 when he won the Turtle Bay Championship on the same course last month. And he did it on a course that played 500 yards longer.

"I don't think that record will ever be broken because the wind won't lie down for three straight days again," said John Dowd, a Turtle Bay official.

These girls rock, but they had the misfortune of playing under a lot more difficult conditions, especially yesterday.