"Clippd is a great tool for showing progress and keeping young players positive."
Georgia State University senior Padgett Chitty on winning the Georgia Women's Match Play Championship, returning home for her final year, and how Clippd shows how she's growing as a player.
Padgett Chitty has her name inscribed into the history of the Georgia State Golf Association, or one of its most prestigious trophies to be precise. "It was one of the best experiences of my life," said Chitty, smiling at the memory of winning the Georgia Women's Match Play Championship in 2021.
"I qualified as the bottom seed," she continued. "After winning the final, it was raining. I had purple hair at the time and the dye was bleeding all over my shirt while I was being asked all these questions!"
Padgett has now returned home, having transferred from Central Michigan University to see out the final year of her college career with Georgia State University. "It means everything," said the graduate student. "There's something different about coming to your home state and being on this team that has very similar ideals to you. Having such an amazing coach such as Ket Vanderpool is such an amazing feeling, too."
Coach Vanderpool is the reason Padgett now uses Clippd to track her game and identify areas for improvement. "I was not familiar with Clippd at all," said the senior, "but since I've started using it, I absolutely love it. I ended up having a fall season that was not the best, but I was able to utilize Clippd to see exactly what was going wrong in my game."
Clippd's data-driven feedback showed where Padgett was falling short. "Oh gosh, I had 39 putts from 12 to 13 feet and I didn't make a single one during the season" she said. "Added to that, I had very low makes on eight-foot putts. I really needed to work on that, especially as someone who puts myself in good positions on the green."
Padgett worked hard during the break, identifying what she needed to work on and then using the menu of practice drills and games in Clippd to train the parts of her game that have the biggest impact on her scoring.
"I use the 'What To Work On' feature in Clippd all the time," she explained. "I like how it shows the importance of actually working on different parts of your game. It shows percentages and how important each part of your game is when you play well."
Padgett took up the game relatively late, but was fortunate to have two great mentors. The first was Bob Spence at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, who then advised her to seek out the legendary Jack Lumpkin at Sea Island in St. Simons. Padgett's father remembered Jack Howard, Padgett's late grandfather, had talked about being great friends with Lumpkin since they had played on the same University of Georgia golf team.
On her first visit to Sea Island, Padgett told Lumpkin about working with Bob Spence. The swing coach and Georgia Golf Hall of Famer immediately stopped what he was doing and walked off the range. "Suddenly this tall guy starts walking towards me with Jack," recalled Padgett. "It was Davis Love III. It turns out that Bob Spence gave Davis the driver that he won his major with."
Padgett feels fortunate to have grown up around people and in environments steeped in Georgia golf. "I adore the Georgia State Golf Association," she said. "It provides such high-quality tournaments at such a low cost. They have great organizers. Everyone there is so nice; they all remember you. You also get to go against some of the best players to ever come out of the state, like Jenny Bae, who finished second in the ANWA, as well as some of the best upcoming girls. I played with a 14-year-old in the Georgia Women's Amateur Championship last year and she was phenomenal."
Golfers are getting better at a young age these days and Padgett believes Clippd can help them to make the next big step forward. "I wish I had access to it sooner," she said. "What Clippd really provides those young players is a chance to actually see their growth. Some girls are young and they don't quite know what they need to work on, so they just kind of guess on it. Clippd gives them full access to what they need to work on."
But what Padgett likes most about Clippd is the platform can really be used to track a player's growth. "When you're 14, 15, 16, there's so much growth within your game and yet some girls really don't realize it," she said. "They'll have a bad tournament and think they'll never get to play collegiate golf. But that's not true. They can simply go back and look at Clippd and see how great they are and how much they've grown.
"Clippd really does a good job of showing you the positives. I just think Clippd is a great tool for showing progress and keeping young players positive."
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