Fouke golf brings home state title in year 3 of program

FOUKE, AR (KTAL/KMSS) — Three years after its first season, the Fouke golf team wrapped up the 2025 season by winning the conference title for the third year in a row, and bringing home the Panther’s first state golf title.

Before the program was created, golf was a hobby for the boys on the team. For some, since they were young.

“We would go to the range after church when I was, I don’t remember, 8,” senior Brody Bulkley said.

A resourceful gym class helped fuel students’ interest in the sport.

“Got into it during PE class and was playing with paper and duct tape on a ball and had a little hole out back behind our class and we played a little bit and I was like, I’m gonna get me some clubs,” senior River Dobson said.

Rusty Bulkley say that his sons, Brody and Reese, and their friends were more than just casual golfers.

“As they got older, they started playing a little golf here and there. I’d ask them, ‘hey, you wanna go play basketball, you want to go play football,’ ‘No, we’re going golfing’,” Rusty said. ” I just felt it upon me to do what I needed to do to make it to where they could compete at a high school level in golf.”

When the Bulkley’s approached the school about implementing the new sport, it wasn’t well received at first.

“I’m gonna be honest, when Rusty first came to me, as a selfish football coach, I didn’t want it, because it was during football season, but as athletic director, I’m here to do what’s best for the kids and I said we’re gonna do this thing, but if we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it all in,” Fouke athletic director and football coach Jerry Littleton said.

After winning conference in just its first season as a team, Littleton was all for it.

“I didn’t know how good they were. As we’re playing these tournaments, we’re playing Arkansas high and these local schools, but when they go to conference and they won it, I mean, I’ll be honest, I was kind of shocked because the first year we had golf, I just didn’t know what to expect,” Littleton said. “Then after that, each year they just kept winning and winning, and then they finally got this ultimate goal.”

In the first year, Fouke placed fifth in state. The second year, they came in third. Once they made the state tournament this year, they knew they had to keep that pattern going and take the number one spot.

Fouke won the state title by one stroke. It came down to senior Cameron Thomas, playing on the golf team for the first time in his high school career.

“It’s the first year that I actually made the team,” Thomas said. “There was a whole lot going through my mind. I knew, I didn’t know exactly I had to make the putt to win, but I knew I had to do good to win.”

And he did, helping secure the state title for the Panthers.

“It was pretty fun and I knew we had a chance. It kind of has to happen, golf’s weird. Definitely played as a team,” Brody said.

“We just stepped up as a team and went and took conference and then after that, the chances of state were, I mean, they were there because you never know what golf, but then we went to state and we took state, so it’s just awesome,” junior Garyson McAdams said.