RANCHO MIRAGE — Happy turned into grumpy and Christina Kim didn't like what she saw.

The 25-year-old LPGA player is the happy-go-lucky, life-of-the-party one, the loud and boisterous one, the one who has a style all her own and a personality to go along with it.

But, that wasn't the case.

The charismatic San Jose spitfire felt something was different, and she wanted to change it in a hurry.

On Monday, she said she turned over a new attitude. The attire remained the same — bold, bright colors, along with the signature beret. Kim got everything working from head to toe in the first two rounds of the Kraft Nabisco Championship — even down to posting her best rounds of the season and sharing the halfway lead.

“I remember when I was at the prime of my game a couple of years ago,” she said following Friday's round. “I was the person that would go to volunteers and say: ‘Thank you for coming out this week. Without you, we would not have an event,' (and) thanking spectators instead of: ‘Get out of my way, you're in my line,' or things like that.”

“Sometimes, it just happens. You wake up one day and you realize, what on Earth am I doing? This is not right; this is not who I am. That kind of happened on Monday morning probably around the same time I got the new putter.”

The putter was her third in three weeks, but that's about all the changes in her game. She's still got it.

Kim posted back-to-back 3-under 69 and stands atop the leader board at the LPGA's first major championship. She is tied with Kristy McPherson at 6-under, one shot ahead of Cristie Kerr heading into today's third round.

Kim is not saying what it was that turned her around.

Whatever it is, she likes it.

“You wake up, you go out, you play, you're grumpy out there. People are like, ‘that's not you, that's not what you're normally like,'” said Kim, whose highest finish at the KNC event was eighth in 2004. Kim missed the cut last year.

“You get off the course, your feet hurt, your back hurts, your head hurts. It really does take a lot more energy to be upset than it is to not (be).”

When the seven-year Tour player arrived at Mission Hills Country Club, the attitude adjustment gave her the new outlook. The two low rounds also helped.

They were the best rounds of the season for Kim, who has not been inside the Top 25 in the first five events. Her best finish was tied for 31st at the HSBC Championship.

“I've turned over a new leaf in terms of my attitude,” said Kim, who posted nine top-10 finishes last year. “I'm not saying that I'm having fun so much but just thoroughly enjoying myself in every sense of the word when I go out there.”