SwingU, the sports technology and media company, would like to congratulate SwingU Collegiate Ambassador Caleb Manuel of the University of Connecticut for co-medalling at the Big East Men’s Golf Championship and earning a berth in the NCAA Men’s Golf Regionals.
Manuel, a sophomore, started using the SwingU App and its proprietary strokes gained and stat tracking system in August 2021. A few months later, Manuel won for the first time at the UConn Invitational, and last week, he fired rounds of 68-66-71 to earn co-medalist honors at Mountain View Course at Calloway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga. It marks the first time a UConn player has earned medalist honors at the Big East Championships since 1994.
Manuel tied with Seton Hall grad student Gregor Tait through 54 holes, and with the Pirates through to Regionals as the team champions, Tait conceded the playoff for the automatic individual qualifying spot to Manuel.
For the week, Manuel finished at +13.1 Strokes Gained: Total against par, a combination of all five facets — driving, approach, chip/pitch, sand and putting — tracked by SwingU. He excelled off the tee picking up +6.9 SG: Drive against par over three rounds. Manuel added +4.2 SG: Approach and +1.5 SG: Putt.
“It was so cool to see that feedback. Fairways you hit, greens you missed — it just factors in so many different things when it compiles the data,” Manuel said earlier this season. “When I first got SwingU, it told me that I was actually losing shots off the tee. I definitely worked on that for a while and now it’s changed.”
Manuel credits the feedback from SwingU with leading him towards making adjustments to his strategy in order to play to his strengths
“Looking at my stats off the tee, I can now better decide whether I should hit driver or lay back a bit in order to hit more greens,” Manuel said. “I know that my ball striking is my strength, so I try to play to that. If I can hit 15 greens per round — that’s the goal — then roll in a few putts, I know I’ll score well.”
He’s done just that, upping his total of par-or-better rounds to 19, with 14 sub-70 rounds this season through the conference championship.
Next for Manuel is NCAA Regionals, which will take place at one of six sites from May 15-18. He will find out where he is playing on May 4 during the selection special, which will be broadcast on Golf Channel.
Since the start of 2021, more than 100 active professional and top-tier collegiate golfers are using the SwingU App and performance data platform to track their strokes gained and game-improvement data.
About SwingU
Headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, SwingU is a sports technology and media company focused on golf game improvement. The company owns and operates the top-rated golf game-improvement app across GPS, scorecard, statistics and instruction. SwingU Clubhouse publishes an email newsletter reaching hundreds of thousands of golfers daily. Lastly, SwingU Academies develops personalized, branded instruction & training apps and media for clubs, teachers and academies. For more company information, please visit www.swingu.com.
Media Contact
Chris Chaney
chris@swingu.com
