John Hackney is in his 15th season as head coach of the BartonCollege men's golf team.
Hackney has directed the Bulldogs to 12 consecutive NCAA D-IIRegional tournaments from 2000 to 2011 and Barton has seized aremarkable 42 team championships and 29 medalist awards during histenure.
Barton has been nationally ranked in the top 25 for 10 of thepast 12 seasons, rising as high as No. 5 in the country in the fallof 2002. The golf team has represented Barton at the NCAA D-IINational Championships in four of the last eight seasons and hashad individual qualifiers two other years.
This past season, the Bulldogs enjoyed a banner year, claimingthree team championships and sweeping the Conference CarolinasAwards. Sophomore Daniel Claytor was Player of the Year, DermotMcElhennon was Freshman of the Year and Hackney was Coach of theYear for the fourth time. Hackney was later named SoutheastRegional Coach of the Year for the third time. Claytor andsophomore Michael Marshburn were first-team All-Conference picksand senior Daniel Castleberry and McElhennon made the secondteam.
Barton finished as Conference Carolinas Tournament runner-up andtook a No. 1 seed from the Southeast Region into the NCAA SERegional Championship in Deland, Fla. The top five teams earnedberths to the NCAA DII National Championships, and Barton finishedthird behind a co-medalist performance by Marshburn.
At Nationals, the Bulldogs put on a final day surge to get inthe top eight, thus qualifying for the National Quarterfinals, butlost out to No. 1 Lynn University in the medal match play portionof the event.
Barton was ranked among the top 10 teams nationally for most ofthe season and finished seventh in both the Nike/Golf World andGolfstat polls.
The 2006-07 Bulldogs rallied from eight shots down on the finalday to win the final Carolinas-Virginia Athletics ConferenceChampionship by one shot. Barton was ranked No. 1 in the AtlanticRegion, but lost out in the NCAA Regional in Savannah, GA, where itfinished third.
The Bulldogs again achieved a No. 1 Atlantic Region ranking in2007-08, but missed a spot in Nationals by three shots.
In 2008-09, Barton rose as high as 17th nationally and finishedin the top 20 in both the Nike/Golf World Coaches Poll and theGolfstat poll. The Bulldogs won two tournaments and finished tiedfor first, then lost in a playoff, in two others. Theirhead-to-head record for the season was an excellent 106-19-4(.850). Barton, playing in the NCAA South/Southeast Super Regionalin Alabama, battled alongside the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the nationfor the fifth and final spot the final round before falling shortof gaining one of the five bids to Nationals. Fifteen of the top 25teams in the nation made up the field in the South/Southeast SuperRegional.
However, Barton senior Jonathan Burke finished second overalland earned a berth to the NCAA D-II National Championships inBlaine, WA, where he finished 29th.
In 2009-10, Barton was ranked second in the vaunted SoutheastRegion all season, but was eliminated in the SE Regional, played atits home course, the Wilson Country Club. However, freshman DanielClaytor (Rocky Mount, NC), placed second in the regional and playedin the National Championships just outside Indianapolis.
Coach Hackney has been chair of the league golf coaches for 11years, is a member of the D-II National Coaches Congress and hasbeen Conference Coach of the Year four times and Regional Coach ofthe Year twice.
He has coached seven All-Americans, one Freshman All-American,10 Academic All-Americans, two Conference Players of the Year andnumerous All-Conference performers.
Hackney is an active member of First Baptist Church, where hehas taught an adult class for 18 years and has served on the deaconboard.
Coach Hackney is a 1984 graduate of the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill. He and his wife of 24 years, June, haveone son, Jacob, a sophomore at Barton.
