Ronald is filling big shoes

When Nicole Ronald steps to the first tee for today’s Jones Cup at the Mesa Verde Country Club, she will also step out of a lingering shadow.

The majority of her 26 years as a member of the Santa Ana Country Club, Ronald has played golf in the shadow of 21-time women’s club champion Marianne Towersey.

Ronald defeated Towersey to win the women’s club championship in 1994, after having won the club women’s title in 1991. She also won the club women’s crown this year.

But, typically, it was Towersey who was the face of women’s golf at Santa Ana Country Club, before she moved last year to Carmel.

As the club’s perennial women’s champion, Towersey represented Santa Ana at all seven Tea Cup Classic events, the precursor to the Jones Cup. The Tea Cup Classic began in 1997.

Towersey, the California senior women’s amateur champion in 2002 and 2004, won five times in seven Tea Cup Classic appearances.

It was Towersey’s dominance, some said, that eventually led to the Tea Cup Classic, which pitted the women’s club champions from four Newport-Mesa private clubs in an annual 18-hole match, being absorbed by the Jones Cup, which began as a men’s event in 2000.

Ronald finished second to Towersey in the Santa Ana women’s club championship in 2004 and 2005.

But Ronald, a doting grandmother of three, said she never resented Towersey’s prowess.

“Marianne is a beautiful athlete and a fantastic golfer,” said Ronald, whose own athletic resume is also notable.

Ronald, who grew up in Belgium, competed in gymnastics, diving and the trampoline. She came to Southern California to train with legendary former Olympic diving champion and coach Sammy Lee prior to the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

Ronald, a national diving champion in Belgium, would have gone to the 1964 Summer Games, but Belgium did not send a diving team.

After marrying in 1964, Ronald took up golf, a game her husband loved.

She joined the Santa Ana Country Club in 1980.

“I’ve played a lot of sports, but golf is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Ronald said. “It teaches you to be a better person.”