What to know about Clippd, the NCAAs new college golf scoring provider

On Clippd’s homepage, scroll a bit and you’ll see a screen littered with college golf logos.

Wake Forest, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Yale, Kentucky, Washington. There are dozens more. A bit further down, there are testimonials from Georgia Tech men’s coach Bruce Heppler, Central Florida women’s coach Emily Marron and Wake Forest women’s associate head coach Ryan Potter about how great Clippd is for their programs.

But Clippd was never a scoring site. Until now.

Its listed purpose is “to connect rich data from multiple sources into a single platform, providing players and coaches with powerful insights to drive improvement, engagement and enjoyment of the game.” Its mission? “To help players to truly understand their game and make better decisions about how to play, practice and improve.” Its vision? “A connected sport that is open, inclusive and progressive, where everyone has equal access to the tools and knowledge to get the most from the game they love.”

“Our aim is to work with golf’s technology firms and governing bodies to deliver you the maximum benefit from the golf data that’s now so easy to generate. To that task we bring advanced data science, machine learning and AI, as well as an unlimited love for the game.”

Now, Clippd is the NCAA’s official scoring provider for all levels of college golf. And it’s starting from scratch.

“We’d been invited to the early stage of the RFP process by the NCAA,” Piers Parnell, CEO of Clippd, told Golfweek. “I asked a lot of questions in those first few calls. I think that the point really is that there’s no underestimating how significant a technical challenge it is to deliver what college golf truly needs and deserves from a technical point of view, from a digital and experiential point of view. And so, you know, ultimately, on the basis of those initial meetings and where things were heading, we felt there was a bit of a mismatch in that understanding.

“Which obviously has now been corrected. Live scoring is another beats altogether, and it needs to be done properly. That’s our intent is to systematically go through a process where we collaboratively work with the community to get live scoring and data in the best possible way to create the right experience.”

Freeman initially reached out to Clippd on Sept. 1 seeking expertise. Parnell and a few partners got on a call with Freeman and tried to help…