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Tee Time with Jon Ransone
December 09, 2016 11:50 AM | Golf
This is not fun and I don’t get it were just a couple of the thoughts that Jon Ransone had running through his mind while around golf.
At first, golf wasn’t Ransone’s first choice by any means. But by being surrounded by the sport and seeing his sister commit to play golf at Penn State, it sort of just fell in his lap.
Coming from a large Italian family, Ransone, a redshirt junior for the Mountaineers, is extremely close with his older sister, Emily, and older brother, Tim.
“I talk to them everyday. If I don’t call my mom by 2 p.m. she thinks I’m dead. When I say crazy Italian, they’re the definition of that,” Ransone said.
Growing up, his parents, Tim and Anne, weren’t golfers. His mother swam and his father played lacrosse.
Ransone and his siblings followed the same trend, playing soccer and other sports. Eventually, they all ended up playing the one sport they felt the most connected to and the one they just couldn’t get enough of: golf.
“My brother, who is the oldest, decided he was going to play golf instead of baseball. So when he would babysit my sister, he would take her to the golf course. She got really good and committed to play at Penn State,” said Ransone, native of Hilliard, Ohio. “Then I quit soccer and thought, 'I’ll try golf.'”
After one year of playing golf at the University of Toledo, Ransone transferred to West Virginia University in 2015.
“There were a lot of things going on at my old school. I didn’t actually realize that I had to pick a school that I wanted to be at. I thought, ‘oh, golf is everything’ and then I realized you only do that half of the year. I was looking for something else, I wanted a big college experience,” said Ransone. “I came on my visit (to WVU) kind of not knowing what to expect here. I actually committed that day.”
Along with Ransone’s quick decision came a little bit of fear, being that this was the first WVU golf season in over 30 years.
“I was actually the first commitment in the new era. I committed and I was like, what did I just do? Am I going to have teammates? I was so impressed with coach where I was like I have to commit, if you don’t commit you’re an idiot,” Ransone stated.
Last season, Ransone finished with a scoring average of 77.00 and this past summer made it to the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifier. He continues to act as a leader on the squad and has high hopes that he, along with teammates, will continue to get improve.
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