Finishing with a chirp

Marianne Towersey put an exclamation point on her second California

senior women’s amateur championship title May 19 with a 25-foot

birdie putt on the 18th hole at the Bayonet Golf Course near

Monterey.

The putt capped a strong three days for the 20-time Santa Ana

Country Club women’s club champion, who shot a 2-over-par 224

(75-74-75) to defeat defending champion Sandy Woodruff by 11 strokes.

Towersey, who won the championship for the second time in three

years, eagled the par-5 seventh hole at Bayonet during Monday’s first

round and continued her strong focus throughout the tournament.

She entered the final round with a three-shot lead over Woodruff

-- the two, who are good friends, played together all three days --

and finished the championship with nothing worse than a bogey.

“It’s challenging,” said Towersey of scoring no worse than a

bogey. “It’s pretty easy to have a lapse and take a double or triple

bogey.”

There are hardly any gaps in Towersey’s schedule this summer.

The Newport Beach resident will begin the first of two days of

match play in the 102nd North and South women’s amateur championship

June 21 at the Pinehurst Resort and will attempt to qualify for the

U.S. women’s amateur championship August 9-14 at the Kahkwa Club in

Erie, Pa.

If Towersey doesn’t qualify for the U.S. women’s amateur, she said

she would enter the North and South senior women’s amateur

championship August 9-12, also at Pinehurst.

The five-time Tea Cup Classic champion -- an event that pits the

four women’s club champions from each of the four private courses in

Newport-Mesa in an 18-hole stroke-play format each summer -- will

also compete in the California women’s state championship July 19-21

at the Pala Mesa Resort in Fallbrook and is exempt into the U.S.

women’s mid-amateur and women’s senior amateur championships in

September and October, respectively.