KAPOLEI — Michelle Wie might still be far from the kinds of rounds that shot Jeong Jang and Paula Creamer to the top at the Fields Open in Hawai'i yesterday. But what Wie did in the first round of the rest of her golf life at least made the past successes appear possible again.

Maybe more important, it made the Punahou graduate smile again, in front of a gallery that started with 40 as the sun rose and grew to more than 200.

Wie opened with a 3-under-par 69 at Ko Olina Golf Club. Two years ago that would hardly have been newsworthy. She started 2006 here missing out on a playoff by millimeters and went on to one of the most remarkable years in golf history for a 16-year-old.

Yesterday, a 69 was stunning. Wie hadn't broken 70 since July 29, 2006 — a span of 19 months, 32 often aggravating rounds and a pair of wrist injuries. Questions swirled about her swing, her psyche and her future as she settled into her freshman dorm at Stanford.

Wie answered a few yesterday, with a brilliant short game and a comeback that got her gallery screaming by the time it was over.

"It was better, better," her coach, David Leadbetter, allowed. "After playing a year of bad golf it's hard to just flip a switch. ...This is a rebuilding process."

"It felt really good to be back into it," Wie said. "It felt good to make positive shots and make positive putts and to have that feeling where you're going under par and you're going low and you can produce any kind of shot you want. This round is definitely a confidence-booster and hopefully over the next few days it'll just get better and better."

She is a foot taller and five shots behind Jang, who tied Lorena Ochoa's tournament record of 64. Jang, who has been among the top-10 money leaders the past three years, bogeyed her first hole — "That wake me up" — and proceeded take apart Ko Olina. She birdied the next four and No. 17, and cranked out four more birdies on the front. She destroyed the par-5s, birdieing all four and hitting three of her approach shots to a foot with a lob wedge.

Jang, whose gentle and generous spirit has spiked her popularity, spoke glowingly of adding boxing to her offseason training for variety, "and to lose 10 pounds I gained in the winter." The 5-footer is hitting the ball farther and, yesterday, hit everything better.

"I hit really good tee shots today," the 2005 Women's British Open winner said. "In irons, I was really, really good. And the putting is really good, so everything was really good."

Creamer, who wasn't successful defending her SBS Open at Turtle Bay title last week, scorched Ko Olina for seven birdies and a 6-under-par 66 to surge past Kelli Kuehne's 67 in the morning. Jang caught Creamer on her 14th hole in the afternoon and just kept firing, with Angela Stanford moving into a share of fourth with Kuehne.

After a slow start, and coming down with the flu, Creamer closed the SBS Saturday with a charge that put her on the leaderboard early. She hit all 18 greens in regulation, but needed 34 putts, including a pair of 3-putt bogeys that derailed her run and left her tied for 12th.

Yesterday, Creamer hit just 11 greens but needed only 25 putts. "The biggest thing for me was my confidence in my putting," Creamer said. "Being able to hole the 8- and 9-footers constantly gives me confidence."

Wie needed but 23 putts in a round probably as low as humanly possible at this point in her career, particularly for someone who hit just six fairways and nine greens in regulation.

She one-putted her first three holes from 4 feet and shorter, including one for birdie. Her troubles off the tee, which have dogged her more than a year, returned the moment she first touched her driver — on her fourth hole (13). Wie hooked her drive into the rough and nearly snap-hooked it onto the highway on No. 14, taking away any chance she had of birdieing those par-5s.

Those would be the only holes she hit driver on the back. She went back to "hapa pu" for her next drive, punching the grass up with her driver, setting the ball down without a tee and launching a fairway wood. But she was reeling and nearly pushed that drive into someone's backyard. A poor second shot led to bogey, though Wie nearly curled in a 25-footer for par.

When Wie smothered an iron shot off the tee on the par-3 16th there was dead silence in her gallery, with half wanting to shake her into a better place and the other half wanting to hug her. When her second shot from the rough on No. 18 cleared the water hazard by inches she could only laugh. But she got up and down for par from 7 feet on the 16th and from the bunker on Nos. 17 and 18.

And on the first hole, with her gallery growing by the minute, she launched a perfect drive — with her driver, of all things. Wie grew bolder and her short game got even better. She one-putted 13 greens in all and birdied four of the first five holes on the front to move into first place for a few minutes. The par-5 fifth was vintage Wie as she whacked her driver, which she hit five times on the front nine, 322 yards.

Or maybe the breathtaking scrambling is now vintage Wie. Certainly she has had lots of practice over the past year-plus. This is the first time she has been home since graduating in May and Wie's phrases of the week have been "memory bank" and "staying in the present," or remembering the good shots and totally ignoring all the bad things that have, and will, come.

"I just feel confident with my putting today," Wie said. "With every stroke I have, with every putt that I made, with every shot that I got onto the fairway, every shot that I got next to a hole, just gaining confidence with every one."

NOTES

Michelle Wie and Liz Janangelo, who shot 68, were teammates, roommates and "shared bedtime stories" on the 2004 Curtis Cup team, according to Janangelo. "Michelle and I are great friends," Janangelo said, "and over the years I think we have both been very supportive and helpful to one another. ... I'd love playing with her. I love the crowds. That's what golf is all about."