UNC-Greensboro golf coach Terrance Stewart said that it was as if former Pinecrest golfer Andy Bare fell from the sky.

The former conference golfer of the year in 1998 from West End began his college career at UNC-G before transferring to Sandhills Community College. Stewart said that Bare returned to UNC-G during the 2001 school year and asked for a chance to make the team. The coach told him he could try to walk on in the fall of 2002.

“It was the first time in my coaching career that somebody walked in the door who could really play.” Stewart said. “Prior to last summer, he hadn’t played much competitive golf in a couple of years. I tracked him and he had the second best scores during the summer of anybody on the team.”

Now a junior, he lost 2-1 in the finals of the 72nd Dixie Amateur Golf Championship in Pompano Beach, Fla., in January. In qualifying for the 16-man match play field, he shot a tournament low 68 and a three-round total of 216. Previous winners of the event included Hal Sutton (1978-79), Jesper Parnevik (1986), Tiger Woods (1993) and Sergio Garcia (1997).

Two weekends ago at Pine Needles, the UNC-G squad won all of its matches to defeat High Point University 7-0 in the third annual Carolina Cup.

In 1998, Bare shot a 65 in the Southeastern Conference Tournament for the Patriots.

Stewart will bring his team to the area again on Sept. 7-9 for the third annual Mid Pines Intercollegiate with a field of 15 division I teams.

Daniela Kessler (Wingate), J.D. McNeill (Elon) and Josie Shinn (UNC) also resume their college golfing careers this spring.

Kessler, a Union Pines grad from Southern Pines, finished third individually in the Tusculum College/Kiawah Women’s Golf Invitational played at Cougar Point Golf Club, S. C., two weekends ago.

The junior had a 36-hole score of 163, finishing 13 strokes behind medallist Kim Meyer-Scott of Northern Kentucky University as the Bulldogs also came in third as a team.

McNeill, a 2000 Pinecrest graduate from Pinehurst, will try to build on a strong fall season for the Phoenix. Monday, under difficult weather conditions in the first round of the Charleston Southern Invitational, he shot a 78, tying for the team-best.

Shinn of Pinehurst, the state medallist in 2001 for Pinecrest’s state championship team, returns to action for the Tar Heels on March 14 in the Lady Gamecock Classic in Columbia, S.C. Shinn completed the fall schedule as a freshman, fourth on the team with a 77.08 stroke average covering four tournaments.

Two-time All-South Atlantic Conference shortstop Chad Hill is off to a good start for Catawba University.

The former North Moore star from Bennett is batting .452 through the first nine games for the 5-4 Indians. He has 14 hits in 31 at bats with five runs scored and seven RBIs.

Next Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., the 6-foot-3, 195-pound senior and the Indians will be playing at Methodist College.

Hill batted .354 a year ago driving in 50 runs in 51 games and made the division II all-south region team. He was the 11th toughest batter to strike out in the NCAA Division II ranks, fanning an average of once every 18.9 times at bat.