Oct. 15 comes and goes with no Spikemark rankings, no explanation
Spikemark’s big rankings reveal is delayed.
The NCAA’s new scoring and rankings partner was slated to roll out its first rankings for Divisions I, II and III, men’s and women’s, on Oct. 15, but that deadline came and went with coaches around the country receiving no explanation.
“Crickets,” texted two different D-I coaches when asked Monday morning if they’d heard from Spikemark or the NCAA. Several other D-I coaches shared something similar with Golf Channel.
Spikemark’s debut has been widely considered disastrous, as the company, founded by former UCLA coach Derek Freeman, has fallen short in many areas since being announced as the replacement to longstanding Golfstat in July. Its live-scoring product malfunctioned on Day 1 and remains down. Its website also experienced a cyber-attack at the start of the fall season and still lacks many of the features it promised when handed the NCAA contract. While most D-I results have been posted, there is still missing data from lower divisions.
And now, we’ll all have to wait longer to see Mark Broadie’s ranking system, which the strokes-gained guru developed specifically for Spikemark.
Tweeted Broadie on Sunday: “The NCAA will decide when the rankings will be posted (definitely not today).”
“In time,” Freeman told Golf Channel last month, “everyone will understand that it’s the most comprehensive, widest, deepest college ranking that can be created.”
Golf Channel reached out to both the NCAA and Spikemark on Monday morning for comment about the rankings and has yet to hear back from either.
An NCAA spokesperson did say a couple weeks ago that Spikemark had started inputting and showing tournament results on its website and that, “We are meeting with Spikemark daily and are working toward a timely resolution of other noted issues.”
Golfstat has stepped back in to service the majority of tournaments this fall as it relates to live scoring, though the company no longer is providing a ranking. The only ranking available is the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking, which has had to limit itself to just D-I men’s and women’s teams because of a lack of easily accessible tournament results.
The rankings are crucial metrics for the NCAA committees in selecting regional fields for the postseason, which begins in early May.
Meanwhile, Golf Channel has heard from two sources close to this matter that Spikemark has brought in, in some capacity, Clippd Golf, a tech company that specializes in golf data analysis, to help fix its problems. The details of Clippd’s role with Spikemark are unclear, though Freeman told Golf Channel last month that he had “hired” a second development team that “knows golf”; he just wouldn’t reveal the name.
Golf Channel is also awaiting comment from Clippd.
Clippd has numerous partnerships in college golf, including with College Golf Experience, which runs camps and is endorsed by the Golf Coaches Association of America, and college programs such as the reigning NCAA champion Wake Forest women and defending NCAA runner-up Georgia Tech men.
“By far the best program we’ve ever used,” one coach said of Clippd.