By Jaden Morgan

The Bowie State University Bulldogs Golf team played its first-ever tournament matches at Fincastle Country Club in Bluefield, Virginia, last month, placing ninth overall. 

The group participated its first season as an established team in the history of the historically Black college and its athletics program, which is in close proximity to the University of Maryland in Prince George’s County.

Students at both the UMD and BSU were generally unaware of the team’s establishment. But people from both universities expressed positive feelings about the new team.

“I am excited for the first season for the Bowie State golf team and eager to see their student athletes represent the university in competition,”said Kelly Hovland, the head coach for UMD’s women’s golf team. “Golf in the state of Maryland will only get stronger with more university sponsored teams and I look forward to seeing the program develop on and off the course.” 

Ambera Agubuzo, who was auditing an introductory stats and probability course at UMD, said she thinks it’s a good thing that BSU has a golf team and said she always supports activities of this sort. 

The Bulldog golf team echoed this sentiment. 

Edric Poitier, head coach of the women’s volleyball team as of June 2022, shared the process of the golf team’s gradual establishment. Poitier said that when he was hired as volleyball coach, there were talks of starting a golf team, but due to a lack of funding and no other interested candidates, the plan was to start as a club sport until a “desired interest was there.”

“I was approached by [former Vice President of Athletics and Recreation Clyde Doughty] after he found out about my keen interest in golf and my previous history as a college player in the conference and he asked if I was interested in being the golf coach,” Poitier said.

Poitier then negotiated with the late athletic director over what kind of team to create at the school.

 “I told him that I wasn’t interested in being the coach of a club sport, but I would take on the responsibility if he would allow me to establish a full varsity team to compete in the conference with other full-fledged teams.” 

Poitier said Doughty had a vision to create such a program for local Prince George’s County students that would allow them to have somewhere to play in college, 

Bowie and Frostburg State University are the only NCAA Division 2 universities in the state and Bowie is the only HBCU, as all other Maryland HBCUs are in the Division 1 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. 

“Our Interim [Vice President of Athletics and Recreation] Dr. Jolisa Williams has embraced the vision proposed by former Vice President Doughty and has placed her full support behind the continuation of the program. I believe that this bodes well for the continued overall success of the program,” Poitier said.

The school recently recognized Whitley Shields, the lone woman on the team, for Women’s History Month in March. 

Shields and fellow freshman player Zachery Alford also displayed optimism. Alford said they’re off to a “good start” and everybody on the team is “overcoming their own difficulties” in outperforming the competition.

Shields feels that this is partly because of the nerves of starting something new and establishing standards of success.

“There is pressure, obviously, because we set the tone for all that there is to come, but we have great coaches who are just great at working with us,” Shields said. “I’m the first and only female that’s on a team with five  other guys. It’s a lot of pressure for me.”

But she and Alford explained that the pressure is subsiding as they all acclimate to the motions of the season and build team chemistry.  

Shields reminisced about her parents starting her involvement with golf a decade ago at eight years old, her interest deepening at 15 as she “started getting [her] first 1-on-1 lessons,” and her passion for the sport being cultivated by the opportunity to represent women in a male-dominated sport.

Alford says that he spent his formative years golfing every Sunday at 3 p.m. at the now-shuttered Glenn Dale Golf Club, being persistent in the development of his golfing ability. He was spurred on by the encouragement of others, a sentiment which Shields related to. 

“You can never see it in yourself, I was never really able to see it in myself, but everybody else would see it,” Shields said. Alford recounted telling himself that he could be a collegiate-level golfer after an excursion of running track in high school. 

Regarding Poitier coaching two teams, Shields and Alford explained that “Coach P” works with the volleyball team in the fall and will focus on working with the new golf team in the spring, during the respective seasons of both teams. 

Year-round, the golfers will have the guidance of graduate assistant Paul Kerner.

Both players feel that BSU starting a golf team is a good way to provide exposure to the sport to the Black community. 

“There’s so much to learn in golf,” Shields said.

The team concluded their inaugural season at the CIAA Championship on Monday and Tuesday, April 13 and 14, at Mill Creek Golf Course in Mebane, North Carolina, finishing eighth.

Featured Image: A TV inside Bowie State University’s gym promotes the golf team on March 10, 2026. Photo by Jaden Morgan.