Meunier Lebouc finished the day on 206, 10 under par, a shot ahead of Wendy Ward, who scored a rock-solid 69, and Se Ri Pak, who was prevented from leading by a shot herself when she bogeyed each of the last two holes.
Several of the leading pack faded away, notably Lorena Ochoa, the young Mexican, who hit a nine on the par-three 12th en route to a 77, and Akiko Fukushima, of Japan, who dropped three strokes on the 10th and two more on the 11th. Fukushima thus went from five under par to level with one mighty backward bound, finishing with a humbling 79.
Meanwhile, a round of quiet menace was produced by Annika Sorenstam, who hit a 68 to leave her a shot behind Pak and Ward. Meunier Lebouc spoke for them. “You can never be comfortable when Annika is around,” she said. “And she nearly always is.” Respect, respect.
Lebouc won her first major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, this year and not even the burden of having to carry round a small passenger — she is 12 weeks pregnant with her first child — prevented her from assembling a score that contained fireworks on the front nine and comparative peace on the homeward journey, which she negotiated with eight pars and a birdie on the 17th.
She did not mark a par on her card until the eighth, preceding it with an eagle, four birdies and a brace of bogeys. Boring it was not; and if she could not sustain the razzmatazz stuff, that 67 would still do very nicely.
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Lebouc, at present 13th in the Solheim Cup table, is ambitious enough for her new offspring to want to take him or her with her to Barseback in Sweden in mid-September — a top-five finish here would move her into the top seven in the money-list, who gain automatic places in Catrin Nilsmark’s team.
A victory, meanwhile, would cement her place in third spot behind Sorenstam and Laura Davies and, by the by, do an enormous favour to Nilsmark in freeing up another wild-card selection for the captain. If the Frenchwoman plays as well today as she did yesterday, she has every chance of landing her second major victory of the season.
If she does, she will be doubly rewarded, literally. She gained only 40 Cup points for winning the Kraft Nabisco championship, but will receive 80 if she prevails at Lytham.
It is all very well — and totally understandable — that the Ladies European Tour feel the need to defend their domain.
But it is close to being a nonsense that the winner of the BT Northern Ireland Open later this month will receive the same number of points as the winner of one of the game’s four majors.
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Meunier Lebouc is not bitter about it. “They have to protect their Tour and I can understand that,” she said, rather more sanguinely than others might have been in similar circumstance. But then, she was speaking from a position of some strength.
If Meunier Lebouc won and was not selected, a cogent case could be mounted for having Nilsmark carted away somewhere quiet.
With three counting events to go, this is a time for players to jockey for position. For instance, Sophie Gustafson and Mhairi McKay, at present fifth and seventh, have filed late entries for the tournament in Ulster.
Given a smallish purse and a weakened field, they clearly see their opportunity for a spot of boot-filling.
As things stand, perhaps the 14 in the qualifying table still have a chance of playing their way into the team as of right, but with only top 10 finishes counting, rapid acceleration is going to be needed for anybody to do much today.
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Just by being present and in the vicinity, world No 1 Sorenstam will obviously be a threat, but if Meunier Lebouc wakes this morning feeling reasonably well — morning sickness has been horrible for her throughout the week, but moderated a little yesterday — she has the game and the form to take the title she wants more than any other.
She birdied the first two holes, bogeyed the third, then went birdie-birdie-eagle to be five under par after six holes. A second bogey on the seventh brought her back to terra firma and made her realise that it was time for her to put her foot on the ball.
So successful was she that she never at any time appeared to be in any danger of dropping a shot on the inward half. “It was steady stuff,” she said. “I just played every shot as it came.” A French victory is on the cards here today, one determined Swede permitting.
Final round, today, BBC2, 3pm