Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss., will take on a little Downeast flavor the next four years as five students from Bangor and Hampden have enrolled in the same program at the school this fall.

The students are Steve Lycette, 18; Todd Hobert, 18; Aaron Clark, 18, and Duncan Millar, 18, of Bangor, and Aaron Mayo, 18, from Hampden. They will each be majoring in marketing with eyes toward bachelor’s degrees in golf management.

“Basically, we’ll be learning the business side of golf,” said Hobert. “And if we decide we don’t like it later on, we’ll still have business degrees.”

Mississippi State is one of only three colleges or universities in the country that offers a golf management program. The other two are Ferris State College in Big Rapids, Mich., and New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, N.M.

The golf management program prepares students for various golf-related jobs such as club professional, club superintendent or course designer.

All five teen-agers have been playing competitive golf since their freshman year in high school. They all met through competing with, or against, each other in high school matches and practices.

Some, like Mayo, have been playing recreationally since age 9, while others, like Lycette, just started playing three or four years ago.

Despite their different levels of experience, they all have at least one thing in common: their low handicaps. To qualify for the golf management program at Mississippi State, students must have a handicap of 8 or lower.

None of the five avid golfers would have known about any of the schools offering golf management programs had it not been for a conversation Mayo had with a club pro at a course in Orlando, Fla., while he was on vacation.

“I talked to a pro in a golf shop, and he told me about the program at Ferris State,” Mayo explained. “So I started checking around athe other two schools had the same thing.”

After more checking, Mayo narrowed his choices down to Mississippi State and New Mexico State. One visit to the Mississippi State campus was all it took.

“The people there were really friendly, the campus is great, and the course is awesome. I’ve been down there twice,” said Mayo.

After Mayo filled the others in on what he had found out, they were sold on it as well.

Besides studying golf management in their elective courses, all five will be required to take courses that satisfy the requirements for the business major.

They will also be required to work as interns at their choice of various certified courses across the country each year as part of the 4 1/2-year program.

Once they graduate, most have indicated they would like to become club pros.

“I’d like to get a job in New England as a pro,” Millar said. “That way, I could be a hockey official in the winter.”

“My No. 1 choice would be to make the (PGA) Tour,” said Lycette. “But if that didn’t work out, I’d like to be a pro or a head superintendent at a course in the Southeast.”

Lycette plans to try out for Mississippi State’s varsity golf team. Only one spot on the team is open each year. To get it, Lycette must win a four-day, 72-hole tournament with a score under 300 strokes.

Those are long odds. But then, the odds of five high school graduates from the same locale getting accepted into the same program at a school more than 1,400 miles away aren’t much shorter.