JOHN KOVACH | Colleges Canfield's McCall looks to elevate her golf game at OU

CANFIELD -- Ashley McCall of Canfield is looking for bigger and better things from her golf game as she prepares to enter her senior season with the Ohio University women's team.
She also is determined to maintain her academic excellence after winning a National Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar Award for the second time, with a near-perfect 3.99 grade-point average for the 2002-03 school year, as a major in finance and accounting. She also won the OU team's Academic Award for 2003.
"Last year I had a rough season," said McCall, who played in five of OU's 10 tournaments during the 2002-03 school year, and averaged 83.50 strokes over 12 rounds in two fall tournaments and three spring events. "Hopefully, I can only go up. This summer, I have been pretty pleased with my golf. The main thing is I want to enjoy it and have fun and take my game to the next level."
Getting ready
Toward that end, she has been blending expert instruction with her practices for the second straight summer under teaching pro Ted Ossoff at Valley golf course in Columbiana.
"I am [reviewing] the basic fundamentals of golf and [my] swing. Hopefully, it will all come together and it will all click," said McCall, who registered a season-low 77 at the Nittany Lion Invitational.
Her best finish of the 2002-03 season was a tie for 26th place at the William & amp; Mary Invitational with a 79, in the only round played in the weather-plagued event.
During the 2001-02 year, she competed in seven of the nine tourneys.
A 2000 graduate of Canfield High, McCall played on the Cardinals' girls golf team for three years under her coaching mother, Diane (Roth) McCall, a graduate of Rocky River High who also graduated from OU, but wasn't on the golf team.
Mother started program
In fact, Diane launched the girls golf program at Canfield when the family moved there from Liberty at the start of Ashley's freshman year, getting the program ready for her daughter's sophomore season.
"She wanted me to have a team experience on a girls golf team, especially when she found there was enough talent and interest [at Canfield]," said Ashley. "She put in a lot of time and effort into getting the program started."
Diane will be entering her seventh season as the Canfield coach.
Ashley also has a summer job in Youngstown that is giving her valuable experience toward her objective of becoming a certified public accountant.
"I am doing a part-time internship with Cohen & amp; Company, a regional accounting firm, with a branch office in Downtown Youngstown. I am getting credit for it [at OU] but it is not required," said McCall. "I took it upon myself to get some real-world experience and see if I want to pursue it. They [the company] came to OU recruiting and that's when I found they have a [Youngstown] downtown office."
McCall is planning to graduate in November of 2004 or March of 2005, and then take her CPA exam.
Influenced by family, friend
McCall's said her parents and grandparents exposed her to golf at an early age. Her father, Larry McCall, also is a golfer. He also played basketball for Canfield High and Hiram College, and is a member of both schools' halls of fame.
But Ashley said she didn't become truly competitive until she was 13, thanks to a friend.
"I had a friend [Amy Blecher] get me interested when I was 13. But, "I actually had been playing competitively the summer before my freshman year, and from that point on [age 13] I was hooked. Prior to that, I held a golf club a lot but I wasn't serious."
Likes mental aspects
McCall especially likes the mental challenges of golf.
"What drew me into it was that every shot counted and that if you execute the shot well you have a reward," said McCall. "Golf is especially challenging because a lot of it is mental."
In addition, "There is a lot of tradition and history in the game, and I was aware of that because of my family being involved in golf."
McCall has a partial golf and academic scholarship to OU.
"OU was a perfect fit to me," she said. "The campus is beautiful, the people there are friendly and down to earth. I knew some of the girls on the team from the junior golf tournament. There were a few familiar faces."
But she said she didn't choose to attend OU because it was her mother's alma mater.
"No it wasn't a factor in our decision, but it was fun when we went on a tour [of OU] because [my mother] knows where she is going. But it was my own decision. Now she loves to visit her alma mater."
kovach@vindy.com