Rancho Mirage, Calif. ? The shoes arrived on Thursday, patent leather slip-ons so outrageously red that Annika Sorenstam wouldn’t even think about wearing them in public, much less during a major championship.

She changed her mind on the biggest day of the year.

“I figured today was the day I had to go low,” Sorenstam said. “If I’m not afraid to wear these, then I’m not afraid to play.”

They were all the rage Sunday, and so was her golf.

Sorenstam made a fashion statement with her red shoes, and sent an emphatic message about who’s No. 1 in women’s golf by claiming the LPGA Tour’s first major of the year at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

A duel in the desert with Karrie Webb never materialized, but Sorenstam was pushed to the very end by fellow Swede Liselotte Neumann.

Sorenstam closed with a 4-under 68 that featured clutch putts and no mistakes, and defeated Neumann by one stroke to become the first back-to-back winner of the Nabisco Championship. She has 33rd career victories and four major titles.

“I’m still pushing myself, still working hard,” Sorenstam said. “Victories like this push me more and makes we want to see what else I can win.”

It came down to the last hole.

With a one-stroke lead, Sorenstam hit her birdie putt 2 feet past the hole and opted to putt out before Neumann faced a 15-foot putt from just on the fringe that would have forced a playoff.

“I didn’t want to mark it and look at it for 10 minutes,” Sorenstam said. “It would probably be 4 feet by the time I hit it, and that’s not what I wanted. This championship means so much to me.”

Neumann’s birdie putt just missed to the left, and the drama was over. Even the traditional plunge into the water surrounding the island-green 18th was anti-climactic. Instead of diving in like she did last year, Sorenstam waded into the water with caddie Terry McNamara and his 4-year-old daughter.

“It’s not very deep,” she said. “I didn’t want to make a silly mistake.”

Why ruin a flawless day?

Sorenstam finished at 8-under 280 and earned $225,000.

“Annika was one step better today,” Neumann said. “She hit it a little bit closer.”

Neumann has gone 88 tour events without a victory, the longest drought of her career. She gave Sorenstam all she could handle, closing with a 69 and putting on the pressure until her birdie attempt on the final hole slid by on the left.

Rosie Jones, the best woman to have never won a major, got to within one stroke of the lead with a 40-foot birdie putt on No. 13, but never challenged again. She finished with a 69 and was at 282, tied for third with 24-year-old Cristie Kerr (68).

“This was one of my best tries,” said Jones, who started the final round one stroke out of the lead. “I just couldn’t some of the birdie putts to fall.”

Webb didn’t make a birdie until the 16th hole. She closed with a 72 and finished seventh at 284.

A duel everyone anticipated from the best rivalry in golf never materialized. It was the first time Sorenstam and Webb played in the final group at a major championship, but the 27-year-old Aussie was never on her game.