The Destined Wethersfield Country Club Pro

By Alex Tawrel 

It’s early in the afternoon on a Saturday at Wethersfield Country Club (WCC) and Ron Dellostritto is in the pro shop helping a member who is ordering clubs. This is a common sight for anyone who is to walk into the WCC pro shop. Dellostritto always makes time to help members and make their golf experience the best it can possibly be.

Dellostritto is wearing a dark colored windbreaker on the cool, windy end of March day which so happened to be the first day that the country club was open for the upcoming season. In the clean and organized pro shop Dellostritto can be seen daily going out of his way to make Wethersfield Country Club one of the top clubs in Conn. Dellostritto is one of the many reasons why WCC is such respected and revered golf club in Conn. Ron Dellostritto truly knows what it means to be a PGA Professional. It was a long journey to get to where he is today but Dellostritto truly was meant to be the head golf pro at Wethersfield Country Club.

Ron Dellostritto has been playing the game of golf for pretty much his entire life. “My Dad got me started in golf immediately. I played my first 9 holes when I was five years old and loved every second of it.” Dellostritto said as you can see the joy on his face as he remembered the start of his golfing career.

Starting golf had a great influence on the life of Dellostritto for it would lead him to a career in golf and to becoming the pro at one of his favorite courses as a teenager in Wethersfield Country Club. “I came here [WCC] in the late 70s four years in a row on my high school team with Maloney high school and it was our favorite day of the year.” Dellostritto said as he recalled his early memories of playing at Wethersfield Country Club former home of the Greater Hartford Open, now known as the Travelers Championship.

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pros in Conn. wanted to work at. So at the age of 28 he enrolled in classes to become a PGA Professional. When asked about the schooling to become a PGA Pro Delistritto explained “It's difficult, the schooling is difficult but when you know it's something you want to do you just buckle down and work as hard as you can.”

This hard work paid off in the end as Dellostritto got a call to interview for a job at one of his favorite courses. “When I got a call to come to an interview here [WCC] it was like a dream come true.” Dellistitto went on to say why it was so exciting to get an interview call from WCC “The tour event being here made everyone want to be here whether it was to work here whether it was to play here. You just wanted to come to Wethersfield.”

This was just the start of Dellostritto realizing his dream when he became the third assistant pro at Wethersfield Country Club. Dellistritto was estatic when he got the job even though the third assistant is more or less being apart of the bag staff  but, this worked out because of the guidance he got from the head pro at the time. “They [WCC] hired me as a 3rd assistant which is almost just like a glorified bag staff person but it didn't matter because Mike [Bailey] was such a great mentor he taught me everything about the business.”

Having Bailey as a mentor helped make Dellostritto learn the golf business and gave him the tools necessary to be able to work his way up to becoming the head pro of Wethersfield Country Club.

“I am really lucky I have only worked at two places” Delistritto said when asked about if he would ever change anything along his career path.

Today Dellostritto can be seen at Wethersfield Country Club daily doing his best to make the golf experience better for every member and guest. Dellostritto worked hard to become the head pro at WCC and all the members are always proud to say that he is the head pro at the prestigious Wethersfield Country Club.

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