Towersey finishes 3rd at Pinehurst

Marianne Towersey, the 19-time women’s club champion at Santa Ana

Country Club, carded a final-round 77 Thursday to finish in third

place -- five shots behind champion Nancy Fitzgerald -- in the 46th

North and South Senior Women’s Championship on Pinehurst Resort’s

5,526-yard par-72 Course No. 5 in Pinehurst, N.C.

Towersey, the lone representative from California, shot 76-73 the

prior two days to finish with a 10-over-par 226 among a field

comprised mainly of players from the east coast.

In July she placed fifth in the California Women’s Championship

and won the Women’s Golf Association of California title in May.

Towersey, the girls golf coach at Newport Harbor High who works

alongside Scott Tarnow during the boys season, said last month she

will play in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship in

September and the Women’s Mid-Amateur tournament in October.

The Newport Beach resident has won five of the first seven Tea Cup

Classics. The Tea Cup is an annual one-day, 18-hole, stroke-play

event that pits the four Newport-Mesa women’s club champions against

each other.