At Nabisco, Gal picks up where she left off last week

So here's an interesting corollary to the rest-or-play-before-a-major question we asked this week: how does winning the week before a major affect your game?

If you're Sandra Gal, the answer is: not a whole lot, at least not right away. Just four days after winning the Kia Classic, Gal teed it up at the Kraft Nabisco, the first major of the year for the ladies, and brought home a clubhouse-lead 5-under 67. (Stacy Lewis and Brittany Lincicome would eventually beat her mark by a stroke.)

Gal conceded that some nerves were present, but fought through them. "With your first win, you kind of still don't know what to expect coming into the next week, and you know, all the people that came to me and all the congrats from everyone, which I really appreciate," she said. "It was a lot, and so I probably didn't prepare as well as I would for a major championship normally ... So I was a bit nervous, yes, coming out today, you know, just coming off your first win, but I did kind of feel like I picked up where I left off."

She had a clutch par-saving putt on 1, a birdie on 2 and a 15-yard chip-in on 4. It was good enough to hold off playing partner Yani Tseng, who finished three strokes behind, as well as other notables Karrie Webb (-3), Ai Miyazato (-1) and Michelle Wie (+2).

The Kraft Nabisco continues tomorrow and proceeds right on through the celebratory dunking on Sunday afternoon.