Tracy Hanson started early in the first round of the Standard Register Ping and shot a great score. She started the second round late and got the same result.

Hanson, who opened with a 6-under-par 66, shot 69 today and took a one-shot lead over Karrie Webb and Lorie Kane at 9-under-par 135. A career non-winner, Hanson dodged the pitfalls that claimed some of the LPGA's best with a one-shot-a-time focus.

"To be honest, I felt like I hit the ball better today," Hanson said. "I felt confident out there. My game is solid all the way around now. I'm making good decisions, and I'm keeping my drives in the fairways, which is key because of the rough."

She cited ability to adjust to the greens as a reason she was able to tame the 6,435-yard Moon Valley Country Club course, where par was reduced and three greens were rebuilt in the offseason.

"This course can throw someone off quickly," Hanson said. "You can putt well and not make a putt because the greens aren't true."

Webb, who has won twice in five tournaments this year and has broken par in 17 of her 21 rounds, was satisfied with conditions after her second straight 68.

"I don't think the greens are rolling any faster; it might be a little softer. They were as true as they have been all week," Webb said.

Defending champion Liselotte Neumann was glaringly absent after the weekend field was trimmed to 70. Neumann, who beat Rosie Jones in a playoff last year, had a second-round 72 after her opening 82, and missed the cut of 2-over 146.

"You don't expect a player of that standard to shoot that number," Webb said about Neumann's first-round score.

Jones's 36-hole score was 147, taking the other 1998 playoff participant out of the tournament.

U.S. Women's Open winner Se Ri Pak, who won three other titles last year as a rookie, and Patty Sheehan, whose 1993 victory in Phoenix gained her entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame, were at 148 and also missed the cut, as did Danielle Ammaccapane, a two-time Phoenix winner, who came in at 151.

Helen Alfredsson was at 138, with Tina Barrett at 139, and Laura Davies and Kim Saiki five shots behind Hanson. Davies won four consecutive titles at Moon Valley until Neumann broke the string in 1998.

First-round leader Dawn Coe-Jones got to finish her fifth tournament in six tries this year, joining a group of seven at 141. But Coe-Jones's 76 after an opening 65 was another example of how tough the new layout played.

She had two birdies and three bogeys in the first nine holes, then bogeyed three more holes after the turn to fall out of contention.

Hanson, whose bogey on the third hole of the opening round cost her a share of the lead, got all her birdies today before her second bogey of the event. She used wedges to get within range of four birdie putts in the first 10 holes, reaching 10-under with a 9-footer on No. 10.

The course caught up when she bogeyed No. 14, a deceptive, 345-yard par-4 that has one of the new greens. It wasn't the green but the rough that was the problem, leaving Hanson with a difficult chip after she blasted out of a bunker with her second shot.

She two-putted from 27 feet, then parred out the last four holes to hang onto the lead.

Kane, who is sixth in the LPGA in rounds under par (19-of-27) to Webb's first, had her only bogey of the tournament on the first hole, then birdied three of the next seven holes and finished with 10 pars in a row.

"The only thing I can concern myself with to lower my stroke average and put myself in position to win," she said.