The favorites are familiar at Mission Hills

As far as preludes to a major go, let’s just say it has been brief. Whether six tournaments are enough for anyone to get any footing on the LPGA Tour, it’s just the way it is, and the $2-million Kraft Nabisco Championship is still going to get underway today. Ready or not.

The first major of the year, played out at the newly bunkered Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, is probably a wide-open contest for most of the 112-player field, although Lorena Ochoa will once again begin as the prohibitive favorite.

Ochoa has already shown that she’s more than ready to get this major thing started, winning two of the three tournaments she has played, including a seven-shot runaway last week at the Safeway International.

In seven trips to Mission Hills, Ochoa has five top 10s, but she missed a good chance to win in 2006 when she opened with a 62. Ochoa bogeyed four holes on the back nine on Sunday and despite an eagle at the 72nd hole, she lost to Karrie Webb in a playoff.

Ochoa said she doesn’t hold any grudges against the place.

“I’m ready to have a good week,” she said. “I’ve been close a few times and hopefully this is the year.”

Of course, she’s not the only one who’s hoping the same thing at Mission Hills, where all 84 bunkers have been revamped and filled with new sand.

Ochoa is only 26, but she’s getting pressure from a group of peers who have already shown they’re capable of jumping in the pond beside the 18th green on Sunday.

Take Morgan Pressel, for instance. Only 19, she became the LPGA Tour’s youngest major champion when she won here last year. She has spent a lot of time recently working on her putting stroke.

“Getting putts to go in the hole,” she said. “That’s a big deal.”

Paula Creamer, 21, has won five times, twice last year and in February at the Fields Open. She tied for 15th last year at Mission Hills and that was her best effort in four appearances here. But unlike Ochoa and Pressel, Creamer hasn’t won a major yet.

“It definitely motivates me,” she said. “I definitely want to win a major and this would be a great week to start this out.

“Everybody puts emphasis on majors because they are the best tournaments to win and they are on this pedestal. I think going into them that mentally, it’s not been the same as any other week, and I think my best golf playing is when I’m relaxed.”

Few may be as relaxed, and motivated, as Annika Sorenstam, a 10-time major winner and a three-time champion at Mission Hills. Now 37, Sorenstam played her first Kraft in 1995 and six years later won it for the first time, then won it again the next year.

“This is just a special place and I have to say it’s good to be back,” Sorenstam said.

There are others to consider. Suzann Pettersen, 26, won her first major last year at the LPGA championship and tied for second with Brittany Lincicome and Catriona Matthew at Mission Hills, so she’s also in the mix this week. But so are Webb, Juli Inkster, Cristie Kerr, Natalie Gulbis, Mi Hyun Kim and Se Ri Pak.

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thomas.bonk@latimes.com

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0 for the desert

Lorena Ochoa is the No. 1-ranked female golfer in the world, but she hasn’t won the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Her results there the last five years:

2007...Tied for 10th

2006...2nd (lost in playoff)

2005...Tied for 35th

2004...Tied for 8th

2003...3rd

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www.kncgolf.com