Women’s golf: Tea Cup Classic, anyone?

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - The locally famous Tea Cup Classic, the

Newport-Mesa community’s summertime celebration of women’s golf, is today

at Newport Beach Country Club. Tea time is 1 p.m.

The event, featuring the four women’s club golf champions in the Daily

Pilot circulation, is hosted on a rotation basis among the four clubs in

the Newport-Mesa community.

Clearly defined as the carrot at the end of the chase for local

women’s club golf champions, the Tea Cup Classic is played under the

auspices of the Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot Club Championship

Series, which was started by this sports section in 1997 to promote

women’s golf and bring the local golf community closer together.

While the two aforementioned goals continue to be a quest for this

newspaper, it has become abundantly clear who stands alone as the player

to beat -- three-time defending champion Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana

Country Club.

With the Tea Cup Classic has come increased discussion, competition

and rivalries among club members vying for titles at Newport Beach, Santa

Ana, Mesa Verde Country Club and Big Canyon Country Club.

“Once you win a club championship,” first-time Big Canyon champion and

Tea Cup participant Olivia Slutzky said, “there’s really no drama after

winning it. So, now, it’s great to look forward to this. It’s something

special for women golfers.”

The cozy, 18-hole stroke-play event, which crowns a Daily Pilot

champion with a perpetual trophy, will also spotlight Denise Woodard, who

has won six straight championships at Mesa Verde, and Debbie Albright of

host Newport Beach, where she has also captured six consecutive titles.

Since Tea Cup Classic I in 1997, neither Towersey, Woodard nor

Albright have relinquished their respective club titles.

The event, hosted by Newport Beach Country Club for the second time,

begins a second cycle, or rotation, in the 5-year-old tournament. Each of

the four clubs have hosted the Tea Cup Classic once and, essentially, can

claim 25% ownership in the community-based tournament.

A rolling gallery of 200 is anticipated today under warm, sunny skies

with an expected cool ocean breeze at Newport Beach Country Club, site of

the Senior PGA Tour’s Toshiba Senior Classic in March.

Newport Beach also hosted the inaugural Jones Cup last year, the men’s

answer to the venerable Tea Cup Classic. The Jones Cup, however, is a

pro-am with two foursomes, instead of one, like the Tea Cup.

The Jones Cup, a better-ball of partners format, is Aug. 14 at Santa

Ana Country Club, which is also celebrating its centennial in September

and is the oldest golf club in Orange County.

In the Tea Cup Classic, however, the four women step out on their own

and play in one group as a community Showcase of Champions.

And, for the sake of summertime community sports journalism in this

special pocket of the world, our champions seem to represent the

modern-day golf woman and edify the game. Maybe that’s part of the great

attraction, and why hundreds have walked with the Tea Cup Classic

galleries in the first four years.

Perhaps the strongest case one can make for the Tea Cup’s popularity

is the enormous club support each player receives. No matter where the

Tea Cup Classic is held, gallery members distinctly cheer a little louder

for their respective women’s club champions in the Tea Cup.

Regardless of where their club champion is on the Tea Cup leaderboard,

members from Big Canyon, Mesa Verde, Newport Beach and Santa Ana come out

to see them play in an easygoing format that emphasizes a good time and

crowns a Daily Pilot golf queen for a year.

Towersey, trying to win her fourth straight Tea Cup, has captured 17

of the last 20 women’s club titles at Santa Ana and is tied for the

all-time lead in club championships (men or women) in the Newport-Mesa

area with Newport Beach’s Dee Dee White.

In Tea Cup Classic II at Santa Ana and Tea Cup III at Mesa Verde,

Towersey showed that if her long putter is hot, the suspense could be

short and everybody else will be playing for second place. She won both

events by seven strokes each, then won a playoff against Albright last

year in Tea Cup IV at Big Canyon.

Albright and Towersey both shot 4-over 76, forcing the first playoff

in TCC history (Towersey won on the first extra hole, No. 18).

In Tea Cup Classic I, Albright shot 79 on her home course as Big

Canyon’s Selby Schriber won the inaugural event at Newport Beach with a

74. Albright was also second to Towersey in Tea Cup Classic II, when

Towersey smoked her home course.

Today in Tea Cup Classic V, Newport Beach Country Club head pro Paul

Hahn will serve as rules official and club member Bob Price will be the

official scorer.

A 2001 Mercedes-Benz ML320 will be awarded to any Tea Cup player

sinking a hole-in-one on the par-3 hole No. 17.

Along with a perpetual trophy, a bouquet of roses will be given to the

winner, an item started last year by Big Canyon Director of Golf Bob

Lovejoy.