A thriller!

Richard Dunn

SANTA ANA HEIGHTS -- In the most compelling finish in Tea Cup

Classic history, Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana Country Club saved

her best putt for the end as she captured the Newport-Mesa

community’s unofficial women’s golf championship Wednesday on her

home course in Tea Cup Classic VI.

Already exhausted, Towersey wasn’t interested in a playoff, like

in Tea Cup Classic IV in 2000 at Big Canyon Country Club, when she

beat Debbie Albright of Newport Beach Country Club in one extra hole.

This time, three players in the foursome headed to the 18th green

within one shot of the lead and a chance to win the venerable

18-hole, stroke-play event for the four women’s club champions in the

Daily Pilot circulation.

But Towersey, whose once-comfortable four-shot lead had dwindled

to one after a string of three bogeys and a late surge by Olivia

Slutzky (Big Canyon) and Akemi Khaiat (Mesa Verde Country Club), sank

a dramatic 11-foot birdie putt at the par-5 18, an uphill,

right-to-left breaker with Slutzky breathing down her neck while

staring at a 4-foot birdie attempt to force a possible playoff.

“I can’t believe I had that (putt) in me. I’m so tired,” Towersey

said.

Defending Tea Cup Classic champion Albright, who won on her home

course last year, didn’t have her best day of golf, but the rest of

the field kept a good gallery (an estimated 200 in a rolling crowd)

excited to the finish line.

Towersey, who missed at least a half dozen long birdie attempts

and enjoyed most of the round needing only tap-in pars, finally broke

through on the 18th green at Santa Ana with her family and friends

crossing their fingers.

“I couldn’t have done a playoff,” said Towersey, who claimed her

fourth Tea Cup Classic title in five years, winning in 1998 and ’99

by seven strokes, in addition to the 2000 championship in a playoff

over Albright, whose spirits remained high despite a 91.

“It was a horserace,” added Towersey, whose 2-over-par 74 included

a birdie at 11 that turned the match around in a two-shot swing as

Slutzky made bogey on the par-3 hole.

Slutzky, who carded a 3-over 75 and made four birdies, finished

second, while Tea Cup newcomer Khaiat shot 4-over 76 and posted three

birdies.

At 18, Khaiat almost holed out for birdie with a chip from the

right rough, but it rolled just a few inches short and Khaiat settled

for par. She was still kicking herself afterward about the missed

1-foot putt at 16, in which she double bogeyed.

Khaiat, however, arrived back in the race at the par-3 17, where

she stuck a tee shot to within four feet of the flag to set up her

birdie putt. Towersey bogeyed 17, and, with Khaiat and Slutzky making

birdie, suddenly it became a sprint to the finish on Santa Ana’s

dogleg left par-5.

Slutzky, who almost won a golf vacation to PGA Village at the

par-3 17 when her tee shot landed an inch from the jar, reached the

18th green in three and applied most of the pressure on the leader

with what seemed like an easy 4-foot birdie putt (which she made to

end the round birdie-birdie).

“I knew Olivia was going to make that birdie putt, because she had

putted so well all day, and Akemi made a great shot at the end (on

her chip),” Towersey said.

“To tell you the truth, I was only playing the golf course. I

really didn’t want to know how I stood with everyone. But then I

stood on the 18th tee and asked Mike Reehl (Santa Ana’s Director of

Golf and Tea Cup Classic VI rules official) how I stood with

everyone. And he said I was 1 up. So I had to rethink my strategy

about five times. I was getting tired. So I knew it would behoove me

to make that (11-foot) putt (with the title on the line).”

It seemed only fitting that Towersey would end it that way,

considering her heartbreaking misses for birdie on the front nine --

putts that no doubt would have turned Tea Cup Classic VI into a

route. Towersey fired a women’s amateur course-record and career-low

69 at Santa Ana last month, on the heels of a course-record 68 in a

member/guest at Newport Beach in early August.

“I was most appreciative of my caddies (sons Chad and Patrick),”

Towersey said.

“Both said they were going surfing (because of the unusually big

waves along the Newport Beach break). The both left in the morning to

go surf, but then they came back and caddied.”

Towersey, also the boys and girls golf coach at Newport Harbor

High, played in front of some of her students Wednesday and performed

splendidly in an ideal setting for “great golf and good

sportsmanship.”

Towersey, who asked if she could take the perpetual trophy to

Newport Harbor, addressed the crowd afterward during the awards

ceremony and said her students were impressed with everything they

saw. “I think it’s a great tournament,” she said. “It’s exhausting.”

Towersey and Slutzky were tied for the lead at the turn, each

carding a 1-over 37, while Khaiat was one shot off the pace. Towersey

made only one bogey on the front nine, while Slutzky rode a roller

coaster with three bogeys and two birdies.

After Towersey’s birdie at 11 resulted in a two-shot swing at the

top of the leader board, Slutzky double bogeyed 12 and Towersey had a

four-shot lead heading to the 13th tee.

Earlier this year, Towersey won the California Senior Women’s

Amateur Championship at Bayonet Golf Course in Monterey and, in

August, captured the Southern Championship at the PGA of Southern

California Golf Club in Calimesa, the prestigious private-club

tournament in the Women’s Golf Association of Southern California.

The Tea Cup Classic was launched by this sports section to

determine an overall women’s champion in the Daily Pilot circulation,

following a slew of large margins of victory. It was also set up to

promote women’s golf, bring the golf community closer together and

celebrate the area’s four women’s club champions in a special one-day

format.