Golf: It will be no cup of tea for the winner

Richard Dunn

Pack the sunscreen and water bottles. The heat is on for Tea Cup

Classic V.

The venerable 18-hole championship for women’s club champions in the

Daily Pilot circulation -- July 27 at Newport Beach Country Club with a 1

p.m. tea time -- could be the most competitive ever played in the

5-year-old event.

And that includes last year’s playoff between eventual winner Marianne

Towersey (Santa Ana Country Club) and Debbie Albright (Newport Beach),

when Tea Cup Classic IV at Big Canyon Country Club barely finished before

summer’s dark.

Towersey, the three-time defending Tea Cup champion, is the player to

beat. Two months ago, Towersey won a similar event hosted by an Orange

County golf publication, which invites all club champions from Orange

County.

“So, some of these women in the Tea Cup Classic aren’t just the best

players (in the Newport-Mesa community), but all of Orange County,” said

grandmother and entrepreneur Denise Woodard, who has captured six

straight titles at Mesa Verde Country Club and is one of three Tea Cup

participants to have played every summer (along with Towersey and

Albright).

Towersey, who will play later this year in the U.S. Women’s

Mid-Amateur championship in St. Louis, should see a tremendous challenge

from Albright on her home course in the locally famous Tea Cup Classic,

while Woodard and newcomer Olivia Slutzky of Big Canyon should provide

added drama in the cozy one-day celebration of women’s golf.

“I played against Denise in (Women’s Southern California Golf

Association) team play last month and she’s playing very well,” Towersey

said.

Slutzky, who shoots in the 70s, earned her inaugural Tea Cup

invitation by capturing this year’s Big Canyon title by 26 strokes.

The 33-year-old Slutzky is not only the youngest player in the history

of the four-lady field, but the most inexperienced. She also had never

played Newport Beach Country Club until her Tea Cup invitation.

But, in a one-day golf event, that could all work to her advantage.

Slutzky, who has lowered her handicap from double digits to a 3.5 in

about a year, will become the fourth different player from Big Canyon to

compete in the event in four years, following Selby Schriber, Sally

Holstein and Colette Taormina.

Schriber won the inaugural Tea Cup in 1997, then automatically

qualified the following year, when the golf course at Big Canyon was

being remodeled and the women’s club championship was not played.

“She’s an exciting addition (to the Tea Cup Classic),” Towersey said

of Slutzky.

In Woodard’s case, the owner of Mail Boxes Etc. in Costa Mesa, she won

her sixth straight Mesa Verde title this year by 27 shots and is now tied

with Natalie King for the all-time lead in Mesa Verde women’s club

championships.

But Woodard, the only grandmother and full-time working woman in the

Tea Cup field, has been bombarded this year with an increase in business.

Her store has reached No. 1 in Orange County for mail boxes and shipping.

“I just wanted a hobby a few years ago, and now it has turned into a

freight train out of control,” Woodard said. “It’s growing faster than I

can handle. I just hired a couple more girls.”

Even though Woodard is no longer the Mesa Verde team captain in WSCGA

competition, her golf game has improved. Compared to her 2000 club

championship, Woodard shot 20 strokes lower (315) to win this year’s

title.

For Albright, she ran away from the field again at Newport Beach, this

time winning by 19 strokes to secure her sixth straight club

championship.

The vivacious blond and mother of two young teenagers enters Tea Cup

Classic V with lofty credentials (a 1 handicap) and two bridesmaid

finishes in the Tea Cup (1997 and 2000).

Last year, Albright lost to Towersey in a one-hole playoff, and, in

the inaugural Tea Cup at Newport Beach, shot 79 and finished behind

Schriber (74).

Albright, 43, and her 14-year-old daughter, Katie, play golf together

regularly. “It gives us something to do when the boys are fishing,” she

said of her husband, Jock, and son, Charlie.

Towersey’s 17th Santa Ana title in the last 20 years tied Dee Dee

White of Newport Beach Country Club as the all-time leader in club

championships (men or women) in the Newport-Mesa community.

Towersey, who will try to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Amateur in

early August while visiting relatives in St. Paul, Minn., won this year’s

Santa Ana club championship by 25 strokes, carding a remarkable

74-76-74-77--301.

“That might have been my lowest (total) score,” said Towersey, who won

the 1999 Santa Ana championship by 36 strokes after shooting 307.

Towersey, a Newport Harbor High golf coach, is one of the reasons the

Tea Cup Classic was launched by this sports section in 1997.

The event, part of the Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot Club

Championship Series, is an avenue to bring the Newport-Mesa golf

community closer together and promote women’s golf in the area, which

some can argue is among the best anywhere.

FYI: For the fifth straight year, the Tea Cup Classic will be played

on a Friday.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.