Henry Ransom: Golfer Won on PGA Tour in 1940s, '50s
Henry Ransom was a professional golfer, later a rancher and college golf coach, whose victories on the PGA Tour came during the period 1946-55. He once got into a fistfight with another pro during a tournament, but also finished as high as fourth on the PGA Tour season money list.
Full name: Henry Brown Ransom
Date of birth: February 25, 1911
Place of birth: Houston, Texas
Date and place of death: December 21, 1987 in Edge, Texas
Also known as: Henry B. Ransom; a few friends used the nickname "Hank."
His Biggest Wins
The PGA Tour credits Ransom with four wins in official tour events:- 1946 St. Paul Open
- 1949 Wilmington Open
- 1950 World Championship of Golf
- 1955 Rubber City Open
He also won these non-tour events:
- 1941 Texas PGA Championship
- 1941 Texas State Open
- 1945 Long Island Open
- 1948 Seminole Invitational
- 1948 Illinois PGA Championship
- 1949 Seminole Invitational
- 1956 Texas PGA Championship
- 1961 Texas Senior PGA
In the Majors
Henry Ransom's best finish in one of the four major championships was tied fifth in the 1950 U.S. Open, which was also his only Top 10 finish in a stroke-play major. Ransom shared the first-round lead in the 1947 U.S. Open, but finished 29th. He tied 13th in the U.S. Open in 1941, and tied 16th in 1951.In the match-play PGA Championship, Ransom advanced to the Round of 16 or beyond in four years: 1948, 1953, 1956 and 1957. In the 1953 PGA Championship, he was knocked out in the quarterfinals by Jack Isaacs. In the 1956 PGA Championship, Ransom was beaten in the quarters by Bill Johnston. Ransom played in 29 majors over his career, first in the 1938 PGA Championship, last in the 1961 U.S. Open. He never played in the British Open.
More About Henry Ransom
Henry Ransom got into golf as a 7-year-old when he went to work as a caddie at Houston Country Club. He had a colorful youth growing up around Houston and Galveston, with his childhood friends including Jimmy Demaret. According to the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, before settling on golf as a career Ransom earned extra money as both a dancer and a boxer: He danced in a "comic adagio act," and boxed as a welterweight known as "Hammerin' Henry."He turned pro at age 21 in 1932. Ransom made his first start on the PGA Tour in 1936, and made a handful more through 1944 (despite serving in the U.S. Navy in the war years of 1943-44). In 1945, he made 12 starts on tour and finished the year with three consecutive Top 10s: tied 10th in the Mobile Open, tied third at the Montgomery Invitational, and tied fourth in the Orlando Open.
That promise shown at the end of 1945 was realized in 1946 (the first year he made at least 20 starts on tour) with his first PGA Tour win at the St. Paul Open. Ransom had already had some success in non-tour pro tournaments by that point, however. For example, he won the Texas PGA title in 1941, with the Associated Press writer covering the tournament describing Ransom as "lithe" and "handsome."
And yes, newspaper wags of the time enjoyed punning on his last name. When Ransom won that St. Paul Open in 1946, one newspaper headline read, "St. Paul tourney held for Ransom".
His win in the 1948 Illinois PGA was not a PGA Tour win, but was notable for how Ransom won it: by birdying 8 of the last 11 holes of the final round.
Ransom ran into trouble at the Lower Rio Grande Open in Harlingen, Texas, in 1948. His fellow-competitor Norman Von Nida believed he saw Ransom whiff a putt on the first green, and they got into an argument about it. Ransom claimed Von Nida was seeing things, but Von Nida stood his ground: He saw Ransom whiff the putt. The argument came to blows, a full-on fistfight. They went to the ground and Von Nida, although the much smaller man, wound up on top. A local sheriff had to break up the fight. The PGA Tour investigation showed that Von Nida's version of events was correct, according to golf journalist and historian Curt Sampson, and Ransom was suspended from the tour for two months.
But he came back with another victory in the 1949 Wilmington Open, a tournament that is perhaps better-remembered today as the Azalea Open.
The year 1950 was Ransom's high point as a tour player. He won the prestigious (and lucrative) World Championship of Golf at Tam O'Shanter that year, beating Chick Harbert in a playoff. In 25 PGA Tour starts, Ransom posted 10 Top 10s, and in all but five of those 25 starts he finished in the Top 25. He wound up a career-best fourth on the season-ending money list.
In 1951, Ransom opened the season finishing second (his only PGA Tour runner-up finish) in the Los Angeles Open. Later, he played in the 1951 Ryder Cup as part of Team USA, making his first and only team at age 40. Alas, he lost his only match in that Cup: In foursomes, Ransom and partner Ed Oliver fell to Charlie Ward/Arthur Lees, 2 and 1.
In the 1952 Bing Crosby Pro-Am, Ransom came to grief on the famous par-3 16th hole at Cypress Point. His ball falling short of the green, Ransom attempted to play from the beach down below. But on one of his attempts, the ball rebounded and struck him in the stomach.
"That's it," Ransom declared, "when a hole starts hitting back, I quit."
But he didn't quit and wound up making an 11. Perhaps it was some solace that wasn't even the worst score on that hole that year: Lawson Little had a 14.
Even with his successes, in his prime years there were many seasons in which Ransom appeared in fewer than 15 tour events. In 1953 he dropped back down into single digits, and from that point the only years in which he made 10 or more PGA Tour starts were 1956-58. He then continued making a half-dozen or so starts a year through the early 1960s.
His final PGA Tour victory was in the 1955 Rubber City Open, in which he won a a four-man playoff. Ransom birdied the first extra hole to beat Doug Ford, Jackson Bradley and Jack Burke Jr.
His final pga tour start was in the 1966 Texas Open. Many sources say that Ransom left the tour due to an allergy to grass, and it's true that he did suffer from hay fever. Some newspaper articles from Ransom's 1950s heyday refer to the allergy medications that he toted to tournaments. But by 1957 he was describing himself as "more rancher than golfer," running cattle on a 2,300-acre ranch near Bryan, Texas, that he purchased in 1952. Ransom told The Akron Beacon Journal in 1957 that by then he mostly played tournament golf when he'd been away from it (at the ranch) long enough to miss it.
"Golf gives me enthusiasm for the ranch," Ransom said, "and the ranch gives me enthusiasm for golf."
PGA Tour statistics show Ransom with 239 career starts in official tour tournaments, with four wins, one second-place finish, eight thirds, 31 Top 5 finishes and 65 total Top 10s.
In 1960, Ransom took the job of golf coach at Texas A&M, just down the road from his ranch. He held that job through 1974, and his teams won six conference championships (1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1967, 1969) in the old Southwest Conference.
When he retired from Texas A&M, Ransom turned full time to ranching.
He also worked many club pro jobs over the years. His stops included about a dozen years as the pro at Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, plus stops at North Hills Country Club in Philadelphia, Pine Lake Country Club in Michigan, Northmoor Country Club in Chicago, Hermann Park in Houston, and Bryan Country Club very close to his home in Texas.
Ransom had a good reputation as a teacher of the game, too, and he spent about 15 years as a member of the Golf Digest Professional Panel. He offered instruction by writing articles for the magazine or serving as the consultant on instructional pieces. Among the well-known golfers who came to him over the years for help with their games were Bobby Nichols, Dave Hill and Frank Stranahan.
Ransom is a member of the Texas Golf Hall of Fame.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Bryan-College Station Eagle. Obituaries, Henry B. Ransom, December 22, 1987.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Feder, Sid. "Sports Roundup," The Associated Press, The (Massillon, Ohio) Evening Independent, August 10, 1946.
Graffis, Herb. "Swinging Around Golf," Golfdom, August 3, 1952, https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/article/1952aug3.pdf.
McKay, Paul. "Former Aggie golfers reuinted with Ransom," Bryan-College Station Eagle, May 24, 1987.
PGA Tour. 1982 Senior Tour Book, Biographies of Senior Tour Players.
PGATour.com. Players, Henry Ransom, https://www.pgatour.com/pgatour-champions/player/05512/henry-ransom/results.
Sampson, Curt. Royal and Ancient: Blood, Sweat and Fear at the British Open, 2011, Random House Publishing Group.
San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times. "Henry Ransom wins PGA golf meet," The Associated Press, June 22, 1941.
Scharff, Robert. Golf Magazine's The Encyclopedia of Golf, 1970, Harper and Row.
Texas Golf Hall of Fame. Exhibits, Henry Ransom, https://www.texasgolfhof.org/exhibit/henry-ransom.
Thomas, Cathy. "Former A&M coach Henry Ransom dies," Bryan-College Station Eagle, December 22, 1987.
Tibbals, Loren. "Roundup Time Is Here For Rancher Ransom," Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, June 5, 1957.
Trenham Golf History. "Leaders & Legends, 1940-49," https://trenhamgolfhistory.org/philadelphia-pga-leaders-legends/leaders-legends-1940-1949/.
