Tea Cup Classic: Marianne Towersey

Richard Dunn

SANTA ANA HEIGHTS - The Tea Cup Classic has been a real twist and

shout affair for Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana Country Club.

In the Newport-Mesa community’s summertime celebration of women’s

golf, Towersey has taken center stage three years in a row, and, for the

past year, kept the event’s perpetual trophy at her club -- about a

pitching wedge away from the Orange County Fair.

For Towersey, who turned 50 this year and is now eligible for one of

the game’s great rewards (senior events), she will be a favorite again

Friday in Tea Cup Classic V at Newport Beach Country Club (1 p.m.).

A winner in 17 of the last 20 Santa Ana Country Club women’s

championships, Towersey is tied for the Newport-Mesa community’s all-time

lead in club titles (men or women), a record she shares with Dee Dee

White of Newport Beach Country Club.

But the Corona del Mar High and Stanford product, who was raised

swinging golf clubs at Santa Ana Country Club, has taken some unique

fairways in winning three straight Tea Cup Classics, including last

year’s playoff victory over Debbie Albright of Newport Beach.

Towersey, whose golf scores began to plummet 3 1/2 years ago when she

switched to a long putter, won Tea Cup Classic II when she smoked her

home course in 1998, winning by seven strokes.

Then, in Tea Cup Classic III at Mesa Verde Country Club, Towersey

achieved a remarkable feat, after competing for 35 holes in the

match-play finals of the Women’s Southern California Championships at

Mission Viejo Country Club.

After playing in the 36-hole Southern finals, Towersey arrived at Mesa

Verde for a delayed afternoon tee time and captured Tea Cup Classic III

by seven strokes. And with a different putter, because she left hers

behind at Mission Viejo.

“Maybe I was too tired to be nervous (about playing in the Tea Cup),”

Towersey said after winning in ‘99, in which she completed a 53-hole day.

On the first hole in ‘99, Towersey started with a birdie, after barely

missing an eagle when she nailed her second shot from the left rough to

within two inches of the flag.

She tapped in for birdie with her driver, because her putter was

missing (she later borrowed a putter from the Mesa Verde pro shop).

Towersey opened the round with only 12 clubs in her bag and added two

putters along the way -- one from the pro shop, the other her own after

Mike Reehl, Santa Ana’s Director of Golf, retrieved it from Mission

Viejo.

Last year in Tea Cup Classic IV at Big Canyon Country Club, Towersey

and Albright both shot 4-over-par 76, forcing the first playoff in Tea

Cup history (won by Towersey on the first extra hole, No. 18).

Towersey, a Newport Harbor High golf coach, has been involved in

memorable rounds her entire career, including, at age 16, a victory in match play over future LPGA Hall of Famer JoAnne Carner (nee Gunderson)

in the first round of the 1967 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Towersey went on to

the quarterfinals that year, and a 1999 issue of Golf World magazine

included Towersey’s win over Gunderson as one of the country’s 10

greatest upsets this century.

Towersey, whose strong showing in U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur

championship last October led to an invitation in this year’s event in

St. Louis, will try to qualify Aug. 6 for the 2001 U.S. Women’s Senior

Amateur for the first time.

A Stanford history major who grew up with golf, tennis, softball,

volleyball and surfing, Towersey has excelled in athletics her whole

life, friends have said.

Towersey, a mother of two sons, will try to win her fourth straight

Tea Cup Classic against Albright, Mesa Verde’s Denise Woodard and Big

Canyon’s Olivia Slutzky.