Tea Cup Classic’s Denise Woodard (Mesa Verde Country Club) playing

with a full deck

Richard Dunn

COSTA MESA - If you’re looking for a way to relax before the Tea

Cup Classic, just follow Denise Woodard of Mesa Verde Country Club.

Woodard’s recent vacation to the wine country in Napa and Sonoma with

her husband, Ted, has helped, she believes, get her clubs in order.

“We played a round of golf every day and went to a winery every day,”

said Woodard, who will play Friday in the fourth annual Tea Cup Classic

at Big Canyon Country Club (2 p.m.) as the Mesa Verde women’s club

champion.

The only grandmother and full-time working woman in the Tea Cup

Classic foursome, Woodard is an entrepreneurial type with her business,

Mail Boxes Etc. in Costa Mesa, where she employs all three of her

daughters: Lisa, Coralee and Serena.

Woodard, who could easily be the poster girl for the Executive Women’s

Golf Association, also has a son, Brian, the oldest of her four at 31,

and two grandsons from Lisa, who has been married 11 years.

“Coralee just got married April 22, so she’s a newlywed and we were

busy with the wedding,” said Woodard, whose youngest child, Serena, 18,

graduated from Estancia High in June with a 4.25 grade-point average.

Woodard’s idea of a good golf game includes, above all, fun. And, in

the previous three Tea Cup Classics, she exhibited nothing less than the

thrill-a-minute pearls of smiles and laughs, while always finding a way

to make the spectacular shot and bring great applause from the gallery,

which usually numbers a couple hundred.

“(The Tea Cup Classic) is fun, and I always look forward to it,

especially with the possibility of a hole-in-one and getting that car --

that’s great!” Woodard said, referring to the brand new Mercedes-Benz

ML320, which will be placed at the par-3 hole No. 7 (141 yards) at Big

Canyon Country Club.

“You can hack the whole golf course and possibly still get a car.

There’s always hope.”

In Tea Cup Classic III last year, Woodard wasn’t exactly a hack,

considering she secured runner-up honors with an 82 behind repeat

champion Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana Country Club.

On her home course, Woodard enjoyed her best finish in three Tea Cup

Classics, nearly sinking a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-3 No. 12 at

Mesa Verde.

Always accompanied at the Tea Cup Classic by her parents, Alan and

Norma Garwood of Hemet, Woodard said she told her folks about the 2000

Mesa Verde club championship at her daughter’s wedding, which led to her

mother’s response: “Oh, great, we get to come to the Tea Cup Classic

again!”

It can, indeed, become an annual summer affair for the women’s club

champions in the Daily Pilot’s circulation, which covers four private

clubs -- Big Canyon, Mesa Verde, Santa Ana and Newport Beach Country

Club.

Last year, Woodard set a Mesa Verde Country Club record with her

fourth straight women’s championship, breaking the mark of three titles

in a row held by Shirley Kinder (1983-85). Kinder won five Mesa Verde

club championships, spacing them out from 1975 to ’89.

Next year, Woodard will try to tie Natalie King for the club’s

all-time lead in women’s championships with six. King, who won six titles

from 1982 to ‘95, continues to be one of Mesa Verde’s top players,

finishing third in the 2000 women’s club championship.

This year, Woodard shot 335 in four rounds (an 83.75 average) and

captured her fifth straight title by 16 strokes. Izumi Sueoka (351), King

(352) and Debbie Brown (354) all placed in the championship flight.

The Tea Cup Classic was launched in 1997 mainly because of the large

margins of victory by the four ladies club champions in the Newport-Mesa

community. The event is also staged to bring the golf community closer

together and promote women’s golf.

Woodard played Big Canyon in May during team competition and said she

“didn’t play the course that well.”

Towersey set the course record with a 69 at Big Canyon on April 25.

Even though Towersey will enter Tea Cup Classic IV as the favorite,

based on her aforementioned accolades, Woodard isn’t ready to hand over

the 2000 title to the 15-time Santa Ana champion.

“She’s human,” Woodard said of Towersey. “Some days you have good

games, and some days you don’t. But you always want to bring your ‘A’

game to the Tea Cup Classic. People are watching.”

Last week at Mesa Verde’s Ladies Two-day Member/Guest Invitational,

Towersey and King won low gross, finishing two strokes ahead of Woodard

and Candy Meyers (Glendora Country Club) in the better-ball of partners

format.

“(Meyers) was a blind date,” said Woodard, who never met the 1999

Southern California women’s match-play champion before the Mesa Verde

event.

Woodard, who takes lessons from Mesa Verde assistant pro Jeremy

Clevenger, started playing golf after meeting her husband about 13 years

ago at a bowling alley in Las Vegas. Ted Woodard had been a member at

Mesa Verde for several years and encouraged Denise to play.

Previously, softball and bowling were her sports of choice, after

growing up as a Hemet farm girl who would clean horse corrals for fun.

Now, she sips tea with the golf queens of the Newport-Mesa community.