Players celebrate rebirth of golf at Florida’s oldest HBCU

By Helen Ross
Special to NNPA Newswire

The uniforms were the start. Black skirts and orange, purple, red and white polos with a glow-in-the-dark logo.

The young women on the Edward Waters University golf team really, really liked that one-of-a-kind logo.

The six asked their coach, Kelly Allen, if they could leave practice early. They wanted to wear their new uniforms back to campus “because the students didn’t really know that we had a golf program,” freshman Leiahnni Smith explains. They took pictures of each other in their new gear. They shared TikTok videos, too.

“We really made that just a day about us because we were so excited,” Smith said. “Everything was just, we loved it like we were just taking it all in and I felt like the program was starting. I think that was what we knew. Like, okay, it’s starting.”

And with that simple sartorial surprise, Smith and the other members of the Edward Waters women’s golf program, resurrected this season after a seven-year absence, finally felt like a team.

The groundwork for the rebirth of the program at Florida’s oldest HBCU actually was laid in May of 2021 when officials from THE PLAYERS Championship went to EWU’s Jacksonville campus to announce a $50,000 donation from the tournament. The grant from the PGA TOUR’s signature event was earmarked to fund scholarships, cover operational expenses and secure a head coach, among other necessities. 

In addition, past PLAYERS tournament chairmen, who are members of the Red Coats, also delivered more than $10,000 in golf supplies like push carts and backpacks for the team.

Allen wasn’t hired until December of last year, but he knows how important the support of THE PLAYERS has been — and will be — to his program. The tournament also invited the team to TPC Sawgrass where many saw the TOUR’s top pros play for the first time.

“We’re super grateful for that because without that (donation) we wouldn’t be able to basically make history and be the second women’s golf team for an HBCU in the state of Florida,” Allen says.

Turns out, the relationship with THE PLAYERS also played a role in Smith’s decision to become the Lady Tigers’ first signee. The state high school champion from Lima, Ohio, had planned to stay close to home but she reversed course after a recruiting visit to Jacksonville.

 “They wanted me to check out the school, and if it’s something I liked and I wanted to be a part of, then I would be a part of that history,” recalls Smith, a business administration major who hopes to work in the golf industry after graduation. “So, I came down and I really liked what I saw. I found out about the PGA (TOUR) partnering with the team and I just thought that that was an amazing opportunity. Not a lot of schools — or I don’t know of any of the schools that I even applied to or looked at — had an opportunity like that.”

Now, if only her dad Londell, who was back home in Ohio, could be on hand at THE PLAYERS, when the Lady Tigers are hosted by Grant Thornton, one of the tournament’s Proud Partners which hosts a new mixed team event later this year. He used to take her to Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament as well as an LPGA event in Toledo. But several weeks earlier she did the next best thing on FaceTime during the team’s tour of PGA TOUR headquarters.

“I didn’t know if I was allowed to be on the course,” Smith said. “I felt like I knew that I really shouldn’t be walking around. But he was like, oh, go find 17. … I ended up walking and just to see how happy he was for me to be able to at least be there, even if he couldn’t, it meant a lot.”

Smith is one of just three players on the EWU team who played golf in high school, and the most accomplished. The first African American in northwest Ohio to win a state championship, she is also the first Woman of Color Golf-HBCU Collegiate Student Athlete Ambassador.

“I know I have a lot of people looking at me,” the poised teenager says. “I have a big platform. And I may not shoot 68 or I might not shoot low, but as long as I do my best and I’m consistently improving, I think that that’s what I need to really focus on.”