ASSOCIATED PRESS
Michelle Wie acknowledged the crowd's applause after finishing her final round yesterday.
Wie a bit short RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. >> The French player stood on the 18th tee holding on to a two-shot lead in a major championship. It may have sounded familiar, but this wasn't the British Open.
The Honolulu teen finishes
with a 76, as Meunier-Lebouc
wins the Kraft NabiscoBy Tim Dahlberg
Associated PressAnd Patricia Meunier-Lebouc was about to show she was no Jean Van de Velde.
Meunier-Lebouc calmly played her way down the 18th hole yesterday, a smile on her face as she thought of friends and family back home and what a win in the Kraft Nabisco would mean to them.
Like Van de Velde, she got wet on the last hole.
Unlike her countryman, who blew a three-shot lead to lose the 1999 British Open, her soaking came after she was done, in the traditional victor's plunge into the pond next to the 18th green.
"I really was feeling that maybe it's my day, I deserve it," Meunier-Lebouc said.
She did, if only because she handled the pressure of being in contention in a major championship for the first time so well. Accompanying her in the final group were two-time defending champion Annika Sorenstam and 13-year-old Michelle Wie, who faded down the stretch with a 4-over 76.
Wie hung around early but never really challenged for the lead, despite the urging of a fan who held up a sign reading, "We Love Wiesy."
She was three shots back at the turn but three-putted the par-5 11th after hitting the green in two. Had she made the 15-foot birdie putt, she would have trailed by only one.
"That just brought me down," said Wie, who went on to 3-putt the 15th hole, too.
Still, she finished with a par on the 18th hole that left her at even par and in a tie for ninth, one better than the 10th-place finish of 13-year-old Aree Song three years ago.
"I think I played pretty well all day," Wie said. "I'm real happy about the score."
Meanwhile, Meunier-Lebouc had to overcome an out-of-bounds tee shot on the third hole with some steady play in the final holes to deny Sorenstam's bid to become the first LPGA player to win the same major title three years in a row.
She birdied the 13th hole to take the lead, then parred her way in before a meaningless 3-putt bogey on the final hole gave her a 1-over 73 and a one-shot win over Sorenstam.
Along the way, Meunier-Lebouc thought of her 30th birthday party last fall and the fun she had with friends and family who gathered to celebrate.
"I was thinking about that night and all the joy I had," she said. "That's exactly what I wanted to feel on the course."
Sorenstam wanted to go for the green on the par-5 18th but couldn't after her tee shot on 18 ended up in a fairway bunker. Meunier-Lebouc's was there, too, but she wasn't about to make a triple bogey like Van de Velde did.
Meunier-Lebouc did 3-putt the final green, but it didn't matter by that time because Sorenstam had missed her last-gasp birdie putt of 25 feet from the fringe.
"I was swinging so hard on that drive," Sorenstam said of her tee shot on 18. "I had nothing to lose. It was all or nothing."
Meunier-Lebouc tapped in to win, got hugs all around and then was carried into the pond by her husband, Antoine, as her caddie joined her in a wet celebration.
"It had to be my husband and caddie in the water with me," she said. "We are a team. I could not make it without them."
Meunier-Lebouc, the best female player in France, beat the best in the world by playing Sorenstam's game of fairways and greens and doing it just a little bit better to finish at 7-under for the tournament.
She knew it well, after playing her last six rounds with Sorenstam and using the knowledge gathered to remain composed under the pressure of playing a final round in a major championship.
"I was feeling shy until she made the birdie on 12 and took the lead," Meunier-Lebouc said. "Suddenly, I looked and said, 'OK.' I just relaxed and let it go."
Meunier-Lebouc eagled the second hole by pitching in, but her celebration turned to disgust one swing later when her tee shot on the third hole went out of bounds.
Sorenstam had won the last two Kraft Nabiscos and was going for an unprecedented third. She has 42 wins to just one for Meunier-Lebouc, who won the State Farm Classic last year.
It was Sorenstam, though, who cracked, three-putting the 13th hole after taking the lead with a birdie the hole before and then nearly hitting her next shot on the 14th hole into the water.
"Unfortunately, I made two mistakes on 13 and 14," Sorenstam said. "After that I was trying to chase her the last few holes."
Sorenstam finished with a 1-under 71 for second place, a stroke ahead of rookie Lorena Ochoa, who shot a final-round 68.
LPGA Kraft Nabisco
