Fort Worth, Texas ? Slow and steady may have won a famous race, but similar putting strokes leave most golfers over par.

Such was the case for Annika Sorenstam, whose 1-over-par 71 at the Bank of America Colonial was better than most observers expected, but also could have been lower.

Using a conservative approach to dodge trouble, Sorenstam hit 13 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens in regulation, numbers that rank her tied for first and tied for 11th among the 114-player field and numbers that usually produce sub-par rounds.

But Sorenstam, the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event in 58 years, converted only one of her 18 birdie chances (rank: 101st). The result: a two-bogey, one-birdie first round in which a balky putter kept her from going low and instead relegated her to 73rd place.

“This long of a course is longer is longer than I’m used to, and I’m hitting longer irons than normal,” Sorenstam said of Colonial’s 7,080-yard layout. “I have to be conservative. If I stay out of trouble … that’s going to be my plan this week.”

Annika Sorenstam gets a hug from playing partner Dean Wilson after completing the ninth hole. Sorenstam shot a first-round 71 Thursday at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.

The world’s top-ranked woman’s player found trouble only once, in the left-hand rough at the par-4 fifth, part of the famed “Horrible Horseshoe.” Sorenstam found the green at No. 5 but three-putted from 63 feet for her first of two bogeys.

Her first putt there was like most of her other birdie tries: short on speed. Sorenstam saw 11 such putts die before the hole. Some of that, she said, stemmed from playing it safe on holes with tricky pin placements. Other times, it was nerves.

“I was a little tentative all day long,” said Sorenstam, who needed 33 putts over her 18 holes (rank: 109th). “And when I get a little nervous, I get a little tentative. That’s what happened.”

However, her nerves weren’t evident from tee to green. Sorenstam, using either driver, 4-wood or 7-wood, played from the short grass on 92.2 percent of her driving holes, and none of her 18 shots into greens — struck mostly with 6- and 7-irons and usually from 160 to 170 yards — found trouble.