Lynne Cowan captured her fourth California Senior Women’s Amateur title in nine years at Santa Maria CC, navigating a four-way tie for first place heading into the final round to eventually clinch a one-stroke victory.
“It feels great, I’ve been close a couple times but it’s nice to put three good rounds together and pull it off,” she said after the win. “It was a four-way tie, anyone could’ve won it. I was just lucky I had a couple birdies on the back nine and that made the difference.”
Having captured titles in 2014, 2015 and 2018, Cowan is no stranger to the winner’s circle, and her ability to close championships was evident on Wednesday’s back-nine. Heading to the tenth tee sharing the lead with Evelyn Orley, Cowan rattled off five pars to start (coming off three bogeys on the front).
Then, on the par-four 14th, Cowan sent a drive straight down the middle of the fairway, stuffed her approach shot to within 15 feet and trickled a left to right birdie putt into the cup to give her the solo lead.
“I hit a really good drive on that hole,” Cowan said. “I’d been missing that fairway in the left rough for a couple days so I got one in the middle and hit a really nice approach shot…It was a back left pin, the putt was about a 15-footer, it was really nice.”
Taking her one-stroke lead into the par-3 16th, Cowan threw another dart onto the green, this time to within eight feet of the hole. After rolling in another birdie, which was capped off with a storm of fist pumps followed by a huge sigh of relief, her first California Senior Women’s Amateur title since 2018 was all but wrapped up.
“That particular hole, No. 16, was giving everyone trouble,” Cowan said. “For some reason that hole, it makes you hit left, so I had a different strategy for that hole. It was a back right pin today and I decided I was going to aim at the middle and hit a fade. It straightened out and ended up right at the hole”
Cowan missed just two fairways in her final round, though she’ll be the first to say that her putting was the difference maker. It’s the main reason she accounted for two of the lowest rounds of the championship: a pair of 72’s on Monday and Wednesday.
“I think I adapted to the greens pretty well. I had 26 putts on Monday, 30 yesterday and 30 again today. I putted pretty well. I think I had one three-putt across my three rounds, and that’s pretty good for me.”
Cowan emerged victorious with a three-round score of three-over 219, followed by Orley (+4), 2020 champion Lara Tennant (+5) and Karen Garcia (+8).
There was also another repeat winner in the Super Senior division. Marianne Towersey shot 77-83-81 (241) to win by four strokes. The NCGA Hall of Famer is a seven-time California Women’s Senior Amateur champion, and just added her third victory in the Super Senior division to an already legendary resume.
