New coach, new roster: Brian Dolehide takes over reigning WAC champions

BY HANNAH BROOKS
Multimedia Journalist

Tarleton State University’s men's golf team enters the fall as reigning WAC champions with a slightly retooled roster from the one that won the title and a head coach who wasn't there when it happened.

Brian Dolehide was named the program's new head coach on June 12, 2026, becoming the second head coach in the program's modern era. He arrived after four seasons at East Texas A&M, where he led the men's golf program and later oversaw the women's team as well, with earlier coaching stops at Baylor, Goucher College and his alma mater, Florida Atlantic.

Dolehide is stepping into a program at Tarleton State that is coming off its best season in recent memory, that saw a conference championship and 10th place finish at an NCAA Regional, without having coached a single shot of it.

When asked whether inheriting a championship team makes the job easier or harder, Dolehide pointed to the transfer portal as a complicating factor. He was able to retain four players from last year’s roster, while four others transferred in.

“Difficult to answer, easier, hard,” Dolehide said. “It just makes it more interesting, being able to bring in players that I've been able to recruit.”

What remains is a program in transition more than a program that’s defending its title. Dolehide has been making changes that go further than just the roster. He's reshaping the schedule to spend more time in Texas rather than the Northwest and West Coast, where the team frequently played tournaments in years past. This change, he says, is about recruiting and building a local following.

“I'm looking to bring more tournaments and more recruits from Texas,” Dolehide said, “so it's very familiar with the team and helps us compete more locally so we can bring out fans and donors to events.”

He's also adjusting how the team trains between tournaments. At East Texas A&M, splitting time between two programs meant practice was largely left to the players. At Tarleton, he said, “we've been able to have more dedicated practice based off of previous performance.”

The team got its first taste of action under Dolehide at the fall opener in Colorado Sept. 10-11, but the results weren’t up to par. Playing at 5,000 feet on unfamiliar grass exposed adjustments the team didn’t have to make in more local events.

"We just weren't able to adapt as quickly," Dolehide said, "so just a couple things in our practice round need to be changed."

Off the course, Dolehide is building relationships with his athletes as seriously as he coaches them for the green. Dolehide said he's crossed paths with several current players at tournaments in years past, which gave him a head start on the trust a new coach usually has to earn from scratch.

"It's extremely important to build that relationship early on," he said, "just so you have trust between player and coach."

Dolehide is direct with his expectations, which is that winning starts with the players themselves.

“We need to have guys that are ready to compete and ready to get to work and strive to be the best that they possibly can be and work each and every day to get to that goal,” he said

Although the season didn't open the way the Texans hoped, Dolehide isn't reading too much into one tournament.

"We're really excited for the season,” he said. “We didn't have the greatest start that we were hoping for, but we are looking to get back out there these next upcoming tournaments and show how great our game really is."