RANCHO MIRAGE — Cristie Kerr said it as simply as she could.

“You just try and survive,” Kerr said after finishing her second round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship in howling winds estimated to have gusted to around 50 mph. “Your golf swing doesn't matter. Putting doesn't matter.”

Kerr was one of the fortunate players Friday who had an early tee time on a day when everyone connected with the tournament was dreading the forecast of strong winds in the afternoon.

Kerr shot the day's best score, a 4-under 68 that rocketed her up the leader board into third place at 5-under par. But even with her 8:57 a.m. tee time off the 10th tee Friday, Kerr finished her round in the first hour of the strong winds that hit the course throughout the afternoon.

“You've just got to try and see kind of what the shot is laid out for you, and then you've got to play the condition,” Kerr said.

The wind was so strong that Kerr said she aimed 30 yards left of the green on the par-3 eighth hole, her 17th hole of the day, and her shot ended up on the green.

“I'm glad I'm done,” she said after signing her scorecard.

On that same par-3, Angela Stanford backed off of addressing her short bogey putt several times, waiting for the wind to settle because it looked like the strong winds were going to move her ball. Stanford had the lead at 7-under at one point but played her last four holes in 5-over.

The strongest of the winds hit about 1 p.m. and stayed strong for the rest of the day. But even the early tee times faced some wind.

“Actually, it was really breezy when I got out of the car to go eat breakfast, and when I came out from eating breakfast, it had calmed down a ton,” said Kristy McPherson. McPherson managed a 2-under 70 with a morning tee time to share the second-round lead, but she said she had been warned about the wind Thursday.

“I played with the local girl, Jennifer (Johnson), I played with her in the pro-am on Wednesday and she was just a couple of groups in front of me (Thursday) and she was like, ‘we'd better be happy that we got the morning tee times on Friday,'” McPherson said. “I figured she knew what she was talking about.”

Defending Kraft Nabisco champion Lorena Ochoa, playing in the teeth of the wind, bogeyed four of her final eight holes to move from 2-under to 2-over for the tournament.

“It was close to being very, very good, but the way I finished, I'm very, very disappointed,” Ochoa said.

Ochoa said she was upset because she drove the ball well on the day, but she didn't take advantage of the good drives. But the wind was there on every shot, she said. For instance there was her 6-iron approach shot on the par-4 16th.

“It was 139 yards, 25 mph winds I think into us from right to left,” Ochoa said. “And I just lost my balance and hit the ball to the right.”

The damage wasn't just to some players' scorecards. A large, gray balloon for sponsor American Airlines just behind the first tee ripped as it was being restrained from blowing away. Officials eventually deflated the balloon.

For golfers who played last week in the J Golf LPGA Phoenix International, Friday was the second consecutive week of strong winds. First-round leader Brittany Lincicome, who played in the afternoon and shot 74 to stay two shots off the lead, said she had thought playing in the wind last week would help her Friday. Instead, she said, the winds at Mission Hills were much stronger than last week.

“Oh definitely, especially the last two or three holes,” Lincicome said. “I didn't think that was possible.”