Golf: Towersey qualifies for U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur next month at

Big Canyon

Richard Dunn

If there’s a local golfer with a legitimate chance of winning the

U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur championship, it’s Marianne Towersey of Santa

Ana Country Club.

The national championship for women amateurs 25 and older will be

played at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach Oct. 3-8, and

Towersey, the women’s course-record holder at Big Canyon, qualified for

the event Tuesday on her home course, Santa Ana, which was one of several

sites around the country to host qualifying rounds.

Towersey and Karen Mabli of Palos Verdes shared medalist honors with a

76 in the one-day qualifier at Santa Ana Country Club, where 94 players

were vying for 19 spots. Towersey was the only local player to qualify.

Last month in the semifinals of the Women’s Southern California Golf

Association match-play championships at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale,

Mabli defeated Towersey, 1 up in 19 holes, before capturing the title.

Towersey, however, came back the next day to win the fourth annual Tea

Cup Classic at Big Canyon, her third straight Newport-Mesa community

title in the Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot Club Championship

Series.

Towersey, the Daily Pilot’s reigning queen of golf, set the Big Canyon

course record at 3-under-par 69 while playing as a guest on April 25.

There will be few rounds under 70 during the women’s mid-amateur,

considering the teeth at Big Canyon (severe greens and hilly lies off the

fairway).

Alissa Herron, 27, is the defending champion of the women’s

mid-amateur, which started in 1987. Towersey turns 50 in January.

While yours truly was on vacation, Towersey captured the Santa Ana

women’s club championship on Aug. 25, her 16th title in the last 19

years. The club championship was postponed to August because of inclement

weather. Nicole Ronald finished as runner-up in Santa Ana’s championship

flight.

On the heels of a banner summer in the golf community, we begin our

catching up with a belated congratulations on his retirement to former

Hoag Hospital orthopedic surgeon Dr. Michael Drucker.

Without Drucker, things wouldn’t be the same in Newport Beach.

And that includes some of you walking down fairways today after knee

replacement surgery.

Drucker, who specialized in sports injuries, was one of the largest

individual contributors in the history of the former Newport Classic

Pro-Am, which later merged with the Toshiba Senior Classic from an

operational standpoint. The Newport Classic proved to the PGA Tour that

it could stand on its own two feet.

Drucker, spotted in the gallery at the Tea Cup Classic last month at

Big Canyon Country Club, where he’s a longtime member, was one of the

reasons why the venerable Newport Classic became the crown jewel of

mini-tour events, raising more money for charity than most stops on the

Nike Tour (now the Buy.com Tour).

Not only was Drucker a significant donor, he often wowed the crowd

with his golf game in the two-day tournament that lasted 23 years (1975

to ‘97) and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hoag Hospital.

Once, Drucker entertained a gallery of more than 50 around the 17th

green at Newport Beach Country Club with a hole in one.

In 1990, Drucker and professional Jeff Hart tied for first place in

the pro-am team competition of the Newport Classic, and in ’92 Drucker

posted a second-place team finish. He had the lowest score among sponsors

in ’94.

“The (Newport Classic) provides the perfect combination of giving to

the hospital and playing in an excellent golf tournament,” Drucker once

said.

Drucker, whose handicap index has been as low as 3, performed more

than 80 knee replacements and 200 outpatient surgeries a year before

retiring last year.

In 1997, Drucker created and hosted a golf tournament for his former

patients called the Total Knee Open. About 30 of Drucker’s patients who

had knee replacements continue to play golf regularly.

The captain of the 1961 Colgate University golf team, Drucker joined

Hoag’s medical staff in 1974. It was then that he vowed to donate $1,000

a year to the hospital, a figure he routinely exceeded. Drucker was there

in the early years of the mini-tour event when it was called the Crosby

Southern Pro-Am, a fund-raiser for Hoag.

“Hoag has given us a chance to practice at an excellent institution,

and provided a wonderful place to live and raise our families,” he once

said. “I’ve always felt that doctors should give something back to the

hospital.”

With Drucker’s influence, many can still enjoy a good walk along a

golf course, while the small, now-defunct mini-tour event has evolved

into the most philanthropic stop on the Senior PGA Tour.

The Southern California PGA announced Tuesday the winners of its

special annual awards, which included three locals.

Jeremy Clevenger of Mesa Verde Country Club was named assistant

professional of the year; Corona del Mar resident Perry Hallmeyer of Oak

Creek Golf Club was voted merchandiser of the year; and Gerald Hall of

Santa Ana Country Club was named an honorary life member of the SCPGA.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.