Women’s golf: Albright completes 2000 Tea Cup field

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - Debbie Albright of Newport Beach Country Club

successfully defended her women’s club championship and earned the final

opening in the fourth annual Tea Cup Classic at Big Canyon Country Club

on Aug. 11.

Albright, who captured her fifth straight Newport Beach CC title last

week with four sub-80 rounds (76-79-74-77 -- 306), will join the 2000 Tea

Cup field that includes Denise Woodard of Mesa Verde Country Club,

Colette Taormina of Big Canyon Country Club and two-time defending Tea

Cup champion Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana Country Club.

“I’ll have to be careful how much bubbly I have the day before,” said

Albright, whose birthday will be one day before Tea Cup Classic IV. “But,

then again, maybe I’ll need to.”

Albright, making her fourth consecutive Tea Cup appearance, said the

Big Canyon golf course will be challenging, and that Towersey, the Big

Canyon course-record holder at 69, will be favored to win her third

straight Tea Cup Classic.

“I think I shot 76 that same day (Towersey shot 69),” Albright said.

“It’s not that difficult of a course. You just need to know the greens. I

think (the Tea Cup Classic) is going to come down to ball placement on

the greens and putting ability.”

Inclement weather forced the postponement of the women’s club

championship at Santa Ana Country Club until after Tea Cup Classic IV in

August, when reigning champion Towersey will try to win her 16th club

title in 19 years.

Towersey earned an automatic berth into the 2000 Tea Cup Classic --

held at Big Canyon for the first time, which completes the originally

intended four-year, four-club rotation for host site. The ladies event is

part of the Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot Club Championship Series

and was created to promote women’s golf and bring the Newport-Mesa golf

community closer together.

The four women’s club champions in the Daily Pilot’s circulation are

invited to play in the Tea Cup Classic, which, in past years, has drawn a

total gallery of about 200.

Towersey also plans to play in the Women’s Southern California Club

Championship that week at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, a match-play

event. The Southern finals are also scheduled for Aug. 11. If Towersey

reaches the finals, which she did last year but still ended up playing

(and winning) Tea Cup Classic III at Mesa Verde Country Club, a

substitute player from Santa Ana would most likely be sought.

Woodard, another Tea Cup veteran, captured her fifth consecutive

women’s club title at Mesa Verde and is scheduled to be the Costa

Mesa-based club’s ambassador in Tea Cup Classic IV.

Taormina, who won her first women’s club championship with a

Tigeresque comeback at Big Canyon, dethroned Sally Holstein to earn her

first Tea Cup invitation this year.

Taormina came from seven strokes down in the last nine holes to tie

Holstein, then won a sudden-death playoff -- the first playoff in Big

Canyon club championship history -- and earned her way into the popular

Tea Cup Classic.

Big Canyon’s Selby Schriber won the inaugural Tea Cup Classic at

Newport Beach, then Towersey smoked the field on her home course in 1998

and won again last year -- after playing 35 holes of competitive golf in

the Southern match-play final at Mission Viejo Country Club, one of the

greatest golf feats ever in local lore.

Albright entered the final round of the Newport Beach club

championship with a nine-stroke advantage, and continued her steady play

to win by 11 shots. She sank a 15-foot, uphill birdie putt on 17, after

hitting the middle of the green, to solidify her win.

“I was just probably getting relaxed by 17, with what, 10 shots up and

one hole to play?” said Albright, who then made par on 18 for the first time in four rounds.

Sandi Coffer, this year’s Newport Beach runner-up, and Dee Dee White

are the only other women in club history to win at least five straight

championships.

Coffer, who has eight career Newport Beach club championships, won

five in a row from 1987 to 1991. White won a club-record nine straight

titles from 1967 to 1975, when it was Irvine Coast Country Club.

White, like Coffer a member of the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, is

the area’s all-time club champion (men or women) with 17 titles.

Woodard’s run of five straight women’s club titles is a record at Mesa

Verde, while Towersey will be trying for her sixth consecutive Santa Ana

championship in August.

The dominance of such play was a primary reason behind the idea of

forming a one-day, winner-take-all event involving the ladies club

champions in the area.

Results from the Newport Beach Country Club women’s club championship

(final round May 19):

Championship flight (in order of finish): Debbie Albright (76-79-74-77

-- 306), Sandi Coffer, Brenda Parrott and Janice Sauter (first net).

First flight: Marilyn Pope (first gross 258), Judy Wilkerson (second

gross 260), Karen Knoche (third gross 269), and Debbie Exley (first net).

Second flight: Joan Carr (first gross 271), Cynthia Stadleman (second

gross 281), Cindy Mardev (third gross 282), and Jo Vandervort (first net

63).

Third flight: Julie Thorne (first gross 286), Mary Lou Bennett (second

gross 298), Marcia Jager (third gross 307), and Anita Andre (first net

61).