Tea Cup taking shape

Parts of the Tea Cup Classic puzzle are beginning to fit into place

-- like who the competitors will be.

Santa Ana Country Club’s Marianne Towersey won an unprecedented

19th women’s club championship, a 72-hole flight completed 10 days

ago, said Mike Reehl, the club’s director of golf.

Towersey averaged 76 over the four-day tournament to win her ninth

club title in a row. Lin Stafford took second.

Towersey, winner of last year’s Tea Cup, joins Big Canyon Country

Club’s Sally Holstein and Mesa Verde Country Club’s Akemi Khaiat to

qualify for an invitation in the stroke-play event for the four

women’s club champions in the Daily Pilot circulation. Towersey has

won four of six Tea Cup Classics.

The fourth and final spot for Tea Cup VII will be determined today

for Newport Beach Country Club’s women’s champion.

Defending club champion Debbie Albright has a four-stroke lead

(247) heading into the final 18 holes over Janice Sauter (251) and

Nancy Curci (252). The first and second rounds were held May 6 and 8

while the third round was completed Tuesday.

Play begins today at 8 a.m.

“Everyone in the championship flight hasn’t played to their

potential yet this year,” said Paul Hahn, the club’s head

professional. “It is anybody’s to win.”

*

It’s official.

With final accounting complete, the 2003 Toshiba Senior Classic

raised $1 million, the fourth consecutive year the event has reached

or exceeded that amount in charitable proceeds.

In the six years since Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian became

the tournament organizer and lead charity, the event’s proceeds have

exceeded $5.7 million in cash donations. Including in-kind donations,

six-year charitable contributions have exceeded $7 million. Both

figures are the most for any PGA Champions Tour event.

Hoag will receive $881,315 of the proceeds, helping fund the Hoag

Women’s Pavilion, a seven-story 309,000-square-foot facility

scheduled to open on the Hoag campus in 2005.

Twelve local students will receive part of $24,000 in grants as

part of the annual Toshiba Senior Classic Scholarship Fund.

UC Irvine athletics will receive $3,600 while $1,000 is earmarked

for the Corona del Mar High golf team.

Irvine-based Toshiba Computer Systems Group has served as the

tournament’s title sponsor since the inaugural event in 1995.

*

Back to Santa Ana CC for a moment.

Dan DeMille and Jake Easton teamed up to win the club’s

member-member tournament followed in second by Harold Street-Dave

Mudgett and the duo of Jack Van Rossem-Ken Shelton.

Jake Klohs won low gross at 137 for the two-day, best ball format

followed by Joe Phillips and Matt Smith, each tallying 139, for the

tournament concluded April 26.

Santa Ana President Pat Kendall usually is the guy presenting the

trophy to the winner of the match play tournament that spanned six

weeks.

He did it again, only to himself.

Kendall defeated Dick Riley on the 21st hole in the final round to

complete the tournament that began March 15, with some matches along

the way postponed due to rain.

*

Kyle Wilson, starter at Costa Mesa Golf & Country Club, outdrove

the competition in a qualifier for the ReMax World Championship Long

Drive Competition Saturday at Las Vegas Golf Club in Las Vegas, Nev.

Wilson, who pitched for Estancia High and Long Beach State, sent

his 11th drive 347 yards, 7 inches, to take top honors of an

estimated field of 50-60.

By winning the competition, Wilson bypasses the first round and

will compete in the district finals, encompassing California and

Nevada, September 13-14 in Mesquite, Nev., with a chance to move on

to the world championships in October.

That is, if he doesn’t play in Texas first. Wilson, who stands

6-foot-3 and weighs 200 pounds, said he may put his 52-inch driver to

the test in June at another district-final qualifying site. Winners

of the local qualifiers have the option of competing in other

districts if they choose, Wilson said.

*

Greetings to one and all in the golf community.

I will be writing golf columns alongside the watchful eye and

helpful hand of Rich Dunn, who handed over some of his

responsibilities to attend to new endeavors as editor.

I have had the pleasure of speaking with a few of you (Reehl and

Hahn) and look forward to meeting many members of the golf community

as time progresses.

Golf is something I’ve played since I was 13. I’m now 24 and even

though I can’t go out and shoot in the 80s on a regular basis like I

did in high school, walking the fairways and smelling the freshly cut

grass remains the best stress-reliever I know of.

I love the people at a golf course. I worked as a cart attendant

at Mission Viejo Country Club for four years during high school and

formed some strong friendships with members and co-workers in the

middle of racing up and down hills, retrieving the carts and bags. I

also played for two seasons, both at the lower levels on Santa

Margarita High’s team in the mid-1990s when it regularly found itself

vying for a CIF championship.

We were also in charge of filling the divots on the driving range

with sand each night, occasionally using a flashlight to battle the

darkness that often crept in. That job, along with cleaning 400 bags

on the busiest nights, often tested my patience.

But an encouraging word from my boss or a member strolling through

the bag room to his or her car could ease the trivial burdens of life

at a golf course and make me realize I was in a place where people

were, for the most part, carefree and jovial. It is, in fact, a golf

course. A place people come to escape the burdens of life, if only

for a few hours.

I welcome an opportunity to join this community again and the

people that make it so pleasurable.