A bond from the soul

A mother-daughter bond is forever. It runs deep in the soul. On

Friday in Tea Cup Classic VII, Marianne Towersey of Santa Ana Country

Club hoisted the championship trophy again, but this time with a

heavy heart.

Her loyal supporter, friend and mother, Pat Cox, was missing from

the gallery. The former matriarch of Santa Ana Heights passed away

last spring at age 81.

The ring attached to Towersey’s necklace Friday was her late

mother’s wedding ring, something she wears only “now and then.”

Cox, a four-time Santa Ana Country Club women’s champion who

captured titles in the late 1940s through the early ‘60s (before and

after having children), was watching her prize daughter somewhere

from heavens Friday as the Tea Cup commenced at Mesa Verde Country

Club.

“She would be proud,” Towersey said after firing a five-over-par

76 to win by two shots, claiming her fifth Tea Cup crown in seven

years. “She loved the Tea Cup.”

Towersey, who shot two-over 38 on the front nine to manage a

two-shot lead at the turn, increased her lead to five when she

birdied the par-four hole No. 14 and Mesa Verde’s Akemi Khaiat missed

her putt for par.

“I’m very happy for Marianne,” Khaiat said. “She just lost her

mother.”

Khaiat, whose iron shots from the fairway on the back nine

produced some of the loudest ovations from the gallery of about 100,

finished as runner-up with seven-over-par 78. “Yeah, but you have to

make the putt on the green,” Khaiat said, referring to her shot at 15

from 140 yards with a seven-iron and excellent approach at 16 from

150 yards with a six-iron. Khaiat, however, missed birdie attempts on

both holes, including a four-foot downhill putt on 16.

“Akemi would have won if she would have made some putts,” said

Towersey, whose supremacy in the Tea Cup Classic makes the titles won

by Big Canyon Country Club’s Selby Schriber in 1997 and Newport Beach

Country Club’s Debbie Albright in 2001 seem all the more prominent.

Albright, who, like Towersey, has played in all seven Tea Cup

events, carded an 80 in this one, while Big Canyon’s Sally Holstein

fired a respectable 82 and made two birdies.

“I took that photo of Debbie Albright that was in the Daily Pilot

[on Monday] and pinned it up on the wall at our club, because of the

way she’s gripping the club,” Big Canyon member and Tea Cup fan Ginny

Connolly said. “I thought it was a really great instructional photo.”

*

Newport Beach Country Club’s Janice Sauter, the runner-up to

Albright in the club championship, added her thoughts to Tea Cup

Classic VII. “Marianne’s just better than everybody else.”

*

It was great to see Big Canyon’s Olivia Slutzky, who played in the

2001 and ’02 Tea Cup events, walking the course for 18 holes with her

three-month-old daughter, Kyra. Last year, Slutzky was first pregnant

player ever to play in the Tea Cup Classic.

When Slutzky was offered a ride on a golf cart, she politely

declined, saying the walk on the golf course was good for her

daughter. “[Kyra] likes it,” Slutzky said.

What was that we were saying about mothers and daughters bonding?