The Waynesburg University men’s and women’s golf teams competed in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Fall Championship on Monday, Oct. 16, and Tuesday, Oct. 17. While the tournament was taking place, the NCAA made an under-the-radar move to hopefully please the coaches to better the game.
On Monday, the NCAA announced that “Clippd,” a new technology that allows golfers and golf instructors to input, connect and elevate performance data into a single platform, will now be the provider of golf scoring and rankings services. It replaces Spikemark which had been the provider for only three months.
“The whole thing has been really frustrating,” said Head Coach Mike Cipoletti. “We had Golfstat which a lot of people complained about because it wasn’t really user friendly. So, they switched to Spikemark which was never even usable. I don’t know what they were thinking with that. It just has been an unmitigated disaster.”
Before Spikemark, the NCAA had partnered with Golfstat for more than 30 years.
Clippd has been a provider of performance insights for more than 100 NCAA Division I, II and III college programs.
However, over the last few weeks, Clippd had worked to provide the foundation necessary to put together, confirm and publicize the fall 2023 results from all Division I, II and III men’s and women’s golf competitions.
Although seemingly a welcome change for many,Cipoletti is still apprehensive to go along completely with this new innovation.
“Clippd has a reputation of being a top golf analytics software type company,” Cipoletti said. “It can’t be any worse than it is right now. So, it has to be better. Because right now it is non-existent.”
The ultimate test will be in six months at the Presidents’ Athletic Conference spring championships on April 19 and 20, 2024, in Boardman, Ohio.