Mo Gesualdi is the Director of Instruction at the St Johns Golf & Country Club Academy in St Augustine, Florida. After an outstanding junior career, she played college golf under Coach Mic Potter at Furman before drifting away from the game in her early twenties.

A serious and sudden illness left her on the brink of death and then changed the course of her life. Two years of recovery led Mo to the realisation that she wanted the game to be a major part in her life again. Once back on her feet, she began playing and then decided to dedicate herself to coaching.

Mo now runs a thriving junior academy that sees young golfers attend sessions 8-16 times per month. For many, Clippd is now an essential part of their developmental toolkit. We caught up with the host of the Coach Mo Golf Podcast to discuss her philosophy, coaching kids, evidence-based teaching and more. ‍

Coach Mo, thanks for joining us. How would you describe your coaching philosophy, specifically with junior golfers? 

Mo Gesualdi: We're in an era of instant gratification. Some coaches are looking to fix things or put a patch on something. I have interviews with the kids and the parents. I let them know that this is long-term development. I'm not here to do quick fixes. I like to have students who are involved for the long term. Some of them don't necessarily want to play high level college golf, so there are different levels here. I try to make sure that we're all on the same page. 

"You build trust with the kids. You build a sense of a partnership like hey, I'm on your team"

Number one, I'm going to build strong fundamentals. I prefer to do it at a younger age. As we've learned, by the time juniors are between the ages of 16 and 18, the main essence of their swing is going to stay with them for the rest of their career. 

The North Florida PGA section had John Gordon at an event. He said that instead of tough love he likes to love tough. You build trust with the kids. You build a sense of a partnership like hey, I'm on your team, I want to help you get there. Sometimes that might mean you have to tell them things they don't necessarily want to hear, but I want them to know that it's coming from a place that I really care. 

What role does collecting data take in your coaching of junior golfers? 

Mo Gesualdi: I was using Decade with my players for a few years and I switched over to Clippd. One of the main reasons is What To Work On. It makes it indisputable. I love that aspect of it. 

I have a player and she was just working on driver, driver, driver. I pulled up her Clippd and it said her Off The Tee Importance to Scoring was 4% and her putting was 62%. I've never seen anyone whose putting is that high! She just wasn't aware of it. 

"Clippd creates a nice plan of action on what we need to focus on, so we're not spinning our wheels"

We're not able to go out and watch every tournament. The kids are travelling all over the region and the state competing, so we're having to rely on the information they give us on what went poorly or what was good. Clippd makes it indisputable. 

From there, I'm able to create a practice plan for her to help her. What I'm learning is when juniors start self-directing they typically don’t choose the right aspects to work on. 

How often do you use Clippd and what do you look at first?

Mo Gesualdi: I look at it almost every day, especially when our players are competing a lot in the summer. When they're playing in tournaments, I check to see that they're putting it in. I check to see if what they told me that they felt about the round, if that matches what I'm seeing in the stats. 

Clippd creates a nice plan of action on what we need to focus on, so we're not spinning our wheels.

What are the biggest upsides of using Clippd for you as a coach?

Mo Gesualdi: The biggest upsides are it gives clarity to what actually needs to be worked on. It's indisputable. From there, I'm able to create practice plans. Not only do we have the problem, we're able to create the solution. When you attack things like that, it sets you up for success and improvement.

"I don't know why a player would not get would not get Arccos and Clippd. It makes it so much easier"

I love how I can find all the players in one spot and then if I choose to go look more in depth. Then I can organise them. I have multiple programs with different skill levels so I can organise my programming and put select kids within each subgroup. It's just so clean looking. 

Some of your coaching plans take advantage of the great Arccos + Clippd deal. How are you finding using the two technologies together? 

Mo Gesualdi: With my juniors, a lot of them are in that period in their lives where they're growing, they're getting stronger, so their distances are constantly changing. Arccos really helps them to learn their distances and the wind. 

When you use Arccos and you put on practice mode, it'll tell you the miles per hour and what direction it is. So I think it's a way to teach the kids to learn to feel the elements around them and how much the elements may be affecting the ball. 

When they go play a round, they literally hit a couple of buttons and it goes right into Clippd. They don't have to manually add each hole. I don't know why a player would not get would not get Arccos and Clippd. It makes it so much easier for so many different reasons. 

Is Clippd saving you time? 

Mo Gesualdi: Yes. When I had Decade, it would take me a good bit of time to cycle through everything and get what I needed out of it. Now when I open Clippd, I click on what's going on and the Importance to Scoring. I'm always going to click on what is the thing that's highest on that list. 

"Clippd saves me a lot of time in trying to figure out not only what needs to be addressed, but how I'm going to address it"

Then I can really see things in more detail. With my player whose Importance to Scoring for putting was at 62%, we saw she was missing short putts. We got right to work. I've got all the drills we need to do, so when she came in the next time I set up those drills and she was ready to go. So, Clippd saves me a lot of time in trying to figure out not only what needs to be addressed, but how I'm going to address it.

How important is it to be able to distinguish the feel from the real in your coaching?

Mo Gesualdi: I had Dawn Woodard, who does the Judgement Index, on the podcast and she gets into the decision making part of things. When I start getting all these pieces together, why does this player make these kinds of decisions? What is going on in a tournament setting? I talk to them them and come up with my own assessment. When you can get all that information together, you can start really seeing what needs to be addressed and worked on. You're looking at it from a holistic approach. 

The stats are the raw data, and that's a great start. Then it's figuring out the why of what's happening. That's our job as coaches and that's the difference between an instructor and a coach. A lot of these facilities will work with a kid one hour and you're done. You're not going to have enough time to really know what's going on. I have these kids from 15 to 20 hours a week, some of them for years. I really get to know the kid.

Would you recommend Clippd to other coaches?

Mo Gesualdi: Absolutely. I think it's fantastic. It's going to be one of those programs that if you're not doing it, you're going to get behind in your coaching. For players and parents, if you're not stat tracking, you need to do it. Don't wait till college to start doing it. Get in the habit of doing it earlier and you're not going to be chasing your tail. I think it's a necessary and vital component to improving. 

Click here to listen to the Coach Mo Golf Podcast or here to visit her website