The Transfer Portal on the Birdie Bunch

In this episode of the Birdie Bunch Podcast, Kennedy discusses with listeners what it was like to be the first student athlete in the transfer portal and how her game jumped to the next level.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Birdie Bunch is a presentation of I Heart Radio
and the College Athletes Network. Can You dig It? Can
You dig It? You digg? Hey everybody, this is Kennedy

(00:36):
Swan and you're listening to The Birdie Bunch on the
College Athlete Network. Please subscribe to the podcast so you
never miss a new episode. This can easily be done
via the I Heart Radio app. Also, you can find
me on Instagram at can You dig It or on
Twitter and Can You dig It as well or UM
at my website at www dot Kennedy Swan dot com.

(00:58):
Feel free to fill out my contact form any suggestions,
questions or comments you might have to reach out UM
about possible topics that you might want on the show.
So last week we talked about the recruiting process and
kind of the difference between high school and college athletics.
I walked you through my time at Clemson and what
it was like to be a student athlete at Clemson

(01:19):
and just the the changes in time commitment from high
school practice to college practice, high school tournaments to college tournaments. Um.
And so this week I'm gonna walk you through, uh
my transfer process to Ole Miss kind of going into
the portal UM and that kind of stuff. So it
was actually kind of interesting when I decided that I

(01:40):
wanted to transfer UM, it was kind of a mutual
decision between me and the coaches. UM. Like I had
said in my my last podcast, UM, I had committed
to a different coach than I ended up playing for,
and so you know, it's kind of mutually known that,
you know, maybe they wouldn't have recruited me, maybe I
wouldn't have committed to them, UM. You know, we're just
kind of stuff with each other. UM. And so whenever

(02:02):
we both kind of decided that it was time to
transfer UM, I entered the transfer portal, and at this
time it was actually kind of interesting. I was the
first one in the transfer portal. Ever. UM my coaches
approached me about it and said, hey, they've got the
n C double A is releasing this new UM new
way to transfer called the transfer portal, you know, and

(02:25):
it used to be where you would just have to
reach out to the coaches. You know, the coaches didn't
necessarily know that you were transferring UM from other schools
unless you were to reach out to them, or the
coaches from your current school were to reach out to them,
and so now there was this really cool online system
that you could put your information and put schools that
you were interested in, UM, you know, what kind of

(02:46):
what you were looking for into this portal, and then
coaches would be able to reach out to you. UM.
And so for me being the first person in there,
it was kind of cool to to be a guinea
pig and kind of see how it worked so UM.
And it was also kind of weird because I had
to go back to taking visits again. You know, I've
been at Clemson for for two and a half years,

(03:07):
and UM was going back to you know, recruiting, the
recruiting process and taking visits. So UM. I got approached
by a lot of different schools. UM the main ones
that I were interested in were Arizona, Georgia and Old Miss,
and so I took a visit to u g A.
UM loved the coaches there, loved the program, but it

(03:30):
just worked out that they didn't have any funding for me. UM.
I was going to take a visit to Arizona and
then they ended up taking another player as well, and
so I was mainly in contact with the Old Miss
coaches and I went on to visit again. And funny story,
actually I got food poisoning from the best steak house
in town and they made me try it was like

(03:53):
a bacon wrap shrimp, I'm pretty sure, and somehow it
gave me food poisoning and I was throwing up the
hole next morning on the plane plane ride home. But
aside from that, I loved ole Miss. I fell in
love with the campus, I fell in love with the coaches,
and I was just really really excited, um to have
a program where I felt like, you know, I got

(04:15):
I got to pick it um and I got to
pick my coaches. And so funny enough, when UM, when
I got to Ole Miss, the assistant coach ended up
leaving and they hired a new assistant coach, and in
the back of my mind, I was worried, you know,
I was kind of thinking, Man, is this gonna be
like Clemson again? You know, I committed to one coach

(04:37):
and then they bring in another coach, and um, you know,
are we gonna fit? Is the coaching style gonna work out?
You know? I'm transferring because I really want to want
to um improve my my college golf career because I
just it wasn't going anywhere, and so Um. When I
got there, I I met the new assistant coach and
I fell in love with him. He was awesome. His

(04:59):
name is Zach Word. He's still there and he's a
big part of of my progress and where I am
today and the main reason that I'm playing professionally. Um.
But in the head coach is great as well. Her
name is Cory Pinkish. She's still there. UM there I
think by far the two best coaches in college golf.

(05:19):
But um. Once I decided to commit to Ole, miss uh,
I think the tricky part UM with transferring out of
conference is that you can't transfer until the next semester.
So I decided I was going to transfer in October
and I wasn't able to go in until January. Which

(05:40):
it's actually kind of nice transferring out of conference, um
compared to in conference, because when you transfer in conference,
you have to sit out a year UM or at
least I'm not I'm not entirely sure if they changed
that rule. I don't think they have. But um, back
when I was transferring, if you transferred in conference, you
had to sit out a year. So um that was
also a big factor for me and decide sting Ole

(06:00):
miss um instead of somewhere in the A c C.
Because I didn't want to have to sit a year.
But um, yeah, my anyways, my coaches were amazing, and
the whole rerecruiting process was was just interesting because it
changed so much to me for me when I got there.
But it was also interesting because when I got there,

(06:22):
the practices were completely different. So, um, we would have
at Clemson anywhere from like an hour to three hour
long team practices. Three hour was like the longest that
you were going to get and uh ole miss we
had minimum like two hours and anywhere up to like
four hour team practices. And that was a shock for

(06:45):
me because I'm someone that likes to play more than
practice and I had always, you know, kind of in
in high school and at Clemson not really been a
big practice er. You know. I was always like, oh,
I'll go out for an hour or two and get
a good practice under my belt. But I would always,
um rather go play. And so when I when I
got there, um, you know, I just kind of at

(07:07):
practice sitting there looking around. I'd look at my watch
and be like, Okay, it's been an hour. You know,
I feel like I've gotten some good work done, and
then like our two would come around and I kind
of look at my watch and okay, well, you know, okay,
it's our too, so we're halfway there. And then by
the hour three, I'm like, okay, well there's there's not

(07:27):
much else I really feel like I need to work
on at this point, but you know, I'll find something.
And then our four came around and I was I
was pretty much done. But that was something that my
coaches were so great about was getting me to a
point where I could practice four hours, and by the
time I graduated, I would be out there for even

(07:47):
more than four hours. You know, I'd be out there
at the end of team practice still have feeling like
there is stuff I could get done, um, which is
part of the reason that I feel like I've gotten
so much better. UH. And then another big difference about
practice was it Clemson. You know, we do like a
lot of team games. We do a lot of um,

(08:08):
a lot of like team stuff and almost we did
a lot of team stuff, but we also did a
lot of individual competitions, Like we do something called the
Wedge V which was like one of my favorite UH
practice drills that you could do. So we go to
the back of our range, which has like little concrete
blocks that have poles on them, and you can our

(08:30):
range is long enough where you can go from the
front of the range and have like the first little
concrete pole pole B forty five yards and the last
concrete pole be eighty five yards, or you can go
to the very back of the range and have the
first concrete pole be like ninety yards and then have
the very last concrete pole b a hundred and twenty yards.

(08:52):
And so in the UM concrete poles alternate every five
yards and so you've got different targets to try to
hit it at. And so for me, that was something
that really helped my game, dialing in my wedges UM
because that was such an instrumental part I mean of
golf is if you're going to score your your wedges

(09:14):
have to be on point. So yeah, But anyways, in
the next segment, I will be discussing uh in in
more in depth, my time at well Miss, my other
practice UM practice drills that we would do, and other
things that my coaches did to help improve my game.
So again you're listening to the Birdie Bunch. I'm Kennedy

(09:36):
Swan and this is the College Athlete Network. Welcome back

(10:16):
to the Birdie Bunch on the College Athlete Network. This
is Kennedy Swan. Please remember to subscribe to my podcast
so you don't miss the show. You can also find
me on Instagram, Can you dig It, on Twitter, can
you dig It, or on my website at www dot
Kennedy Swan dot com. Feel free to fill out any comments, questions,
anything that you might want to have talked about on

(10:37):
the show. So in the last segment, I was talking
a little bit about being the first one in the
transfer portal, um, the recruiting process, going through that again
and committing to ole miss Um and what kind of
why I fell in love with full miss and some
of the drills that UM that we would do. So
continuing those favorite drills that uh, I think have really

(11:01):
kind of made me who I am today, we would
also do UM something called the ladder. And so the
ladder was a drill that would take place on our
chipping green, which is like our chipping like short game facility,
and the coaches would set up anywhere from like four
to nine cones anywhere around the chipping green and you

(11:23):
would have to hit hit the chip or pitch or
flop or bunker shot whatever it was that they set up,
and then you'd have to make the butt so get
up and down. And if you got it up and
down on the first one, you've moved to the second
cone and you have to get that one up and
down as well. If you got that one up and down,
you moved to the third cone. If you don't get

(11:43):
that one up and down, you go back to the
second cone. And so if there's nine cones, you have
to get all nine up and down without moving back
to the first cone. So that was something that was
really really difficult. I'll admit I have cried during ladders
before UM because they just get so mentally exhausting, especially

(12:05):
the nine whole ones, because I've had times that I've
gotten the ladder number eight and then you have to
go all the way back to number one, just if
you if you're not getting the shots up and down
UM and so, but that was something that always helped
me mature mentally as well, as UM had my short
game improved by tons UM another cool, cool drill that

(12:29):
we would do. UM we'd be out on the short course,
which was honestly probably one of the main reasons I
committed to Ole Miss. It's this UM six whole short
course that you can play. Part four is out there.
The longest shot that you probably have would be about
three hundred and eighty yards UM. But there's six different
greens and each green is modeled after a world famous

(12:53):
golf course. So like one of our greens is modeled
after number sixteen at Augusta National, another one is modeled
after uh Tory Pines. Like there's just some iconic greens
out there. But what are UM. What my coaches would
do is they would set up different shots based on
our statistics and our statistics that's another thing that has

(13:17):
really helped me improve UM while while I was at
Well Miss. But say they look at our stats for
that tournament week and say, um, we were great from
eighty to a hundred yards, but we were horrible from
a hundred to a hundred and thirty yards as a team.
Then they would set up a hundred to a hundred
and thirty yards shots on the short course and you

(13:39):
they would either do like a worst ball scramble, which
is where you have two balls and you play, you
hit both shots and you have to play the worst
one and they always give you a target score. So
your target score would be probably with the worst ball
scramble would be anywhere from even to two over UM.
They would also do UM a best ball scram Well,

(14:00):
you know where you're playing two balls or just you
play two balls and you count both both of them,
and you're trying to get to aid under and you'd
have to keep going until you hit your target goal.
And again these drills where it was like you had
to complete it. There was no option to quit if
you didn't get it by the end of practice. You
were coming back the next day and you were going

(14:20):
to finish it um. And so that was something that
always mentally made you tough. And I think that correlates
to when you have a bad hole on on the core.
So you have a bad, bad round, you can't just
quit and say, oh no, well, I guess I'm done.
You know, I'm not really gonna gonna fight for it
or anything UM. Whereas like on the short course, if

(14:42):
you were two or three over and you were trying
to get to a goal of aid under, well, you're
gonna finish it one way or another. So if you're
two or three over, it's not like you can say, oh, well,
you know, I didn't meet my goal this time around,
I'm done. You had to go back out and you
had to push through it and you had to finish it. Um.
And so these were the drills that really got my
game into into the into the shape it needed to

(15:04):
be to move up the chain of command on the team.
And so when I first got there, um, I shot
like eighty something in the first qualifier. Um, I remember too,
there was one qualifier that I hit sixteen greens and uh,
had I think forty something puts. I ended up shooting

(15:27):
seventy eight hitting sixteen greens, which was horrendous. Like, I
had the worst putting yips of my life and I
could not make a single put like I was missing
everything outside of two feet. And my coaches came up
to me and they're like, what's going on? You know,
we need to fix this. And so they figured out
I was putting with a heel weighted putter and I

(15:49):
was missing everything on the left hand side, like I
was pulling everything. And so they gave me a new
putter and they fixed it, and so little by little
I was starting to move and qualifying. But I actually
didn't qualify for the first two events at ole Miss,
and they took literally everyone to the second event, like
when I mean everyone, everyone on the team, Like, they

(16:12):
took me and actually my best friend now, Macy Samoski.
They took me and her into a nine whole playoff
for the eight individual spot for this tournament, and I lost,
and I was the only one staying at home. And
at this point, the coaches were thinking, like what is
this girl doing? Like this is we you know, we

(16:32):
brought her in here to to be helpful for the team,
and she like can't even make the eight spot in
the lineup. And so when I missed that, I had
to do a lot of thinking and a lot of
self evaluation of what was going on in my game.
And I talked to the coaches a lot, you know,
talked to actually one of the um one of the

(16:52):
sports psychologists at all Miss UM, and just kind of
talked through what was going on in my head and
why I was not playing and performing up to my standards.
And so I kind of slowly started to figure that
out and I qualified for the third tournament. We got
to go to the Dominican Republic, which was really really cool. Uh,

(17:15):
some of the best food I've ever had in my life,
some of the prettiest beaches. We played Cassada Compo UM,
which means the teeth of the Dog, and that is
one of my all time favorite courses. It was unreal,
and I'm if I'm being honest, there was definitely a
little bit of motivation to qualify for that tournament, because
who doesn't want to go to the Dominican Republic. But

(17:36):
after that, I started, um slowly playing better and better.
You know. I kind of finished like top forty, top thirty,
top fifty, you know, which was an approved from improvement
for me coming from Clemson. And then UM, once we
got to postseason at SECS, I did not play very

(17:57):
well at all UM in stroke play, but when we
got to match play, I went three and O and
match play, and I attribute that to where my game
kind of hit a new level. You know. You talk
about people saying in high school golfer in college golf
that there was this one moment that they can look
back on where their game just jumps, And for me,

(18:17):
that was match play, and I had never really played
much match play. UM. I won the Colorado Women's Match
Play UH, the summer before. But other than that, I
never really played much match play. But I knew that
I would like it because I'm so competitive, I am
my My assistant coach calls it an annoying nap, so

(18:39):
I basically walk up to the competitor. I'm always smiling,
I'm always happy, I'm always nice, and it just gets
under their skin. So anyways, in the next segment, I
will discuss kind of the rest of my my junior year,
my senior year and my decision to take a fifth year,
and kind of the some of the he's to to

(19:01):
my success at well miss um and now turning pro.
So again, you're listening to the Bertie Bunch and I'm
Kennedy Swan and this is the College Athlete Network. Welcome

(19:48):
back to the Bertie Bunch on the College Athletes Network.
This is Kennedy Swan. Make sure to subscribe to my
podcast so you don't miss the show. You can also
find me on Instagram at can You dig It, on
Twitter at can You dig It as well or on
my website at Kennedy Swan dot com. So in the
last segment, we were kind of talking about my time

(20:08):
in the Dominican Republic, the first couple of tournaments. UM.
As soon as I transferred to to well Miss, we
talked about postseason and how my game kind of hit
a turning point and I'm going to continue with that
UM kind of talking about regionals. I finished I believe
top twenty regionals that year and then finished top twenty
nationals that year, and that was a huge confidence booster

(20:31):
for me. UM and so I kind of capitalized on
that momentum going forward and in the fall of so
right before COVID hit UM, I actually one at Medina,
which was really special for me. And there's actually a
pretty funny story that goes along with it. So and

(20:52):
I don't know if you guys have followed along at
all UM with my progress just kind of through college golf,
but I have a superstition about needle point belts. So
when I uh and all of this actually started at Medina.
So when we got to Madona, this was kind of
the first really like UM not first, but one of

(21:16):
the main really like big important classic courses that I
got to play in college. You know, I had gotten
to play Augusta once before, but other than that, like
I had not really gotten to play UM too many
courses that like they host PJ Tour events at and
that are just like extremely well known. So when I
got there, uh um, I went into the pro shop

(21:38):
and I saw this belt, and I instantly fell in
love with it. And then I looked at the price
tag and saw that it was two hundred and fifty
dollars and really did not fall in love with it
after that, but I knew I really wanted it. And
my parents have um this way of motivating me, So
they would always kind of make little side bets with

(21:59):
me when I would play, you know, like, oh, if
you make a birdie here and eagle there, if you
hit more than fourteen greens today or something like that.
It was their way of just kind of encouraging me,
uh to um to play well into to not necessarily
like lose sight of um if I wasn't playing well.
And so I called my parents and I made a

(22:20):
bet for the belt, and I won, and so I
got the belt, and that was the first kind of big,
big purchase that I had made. It like a pro Shop,
And now that's kind of superstition of mine of any
time I go to a really cool course, I have
to buy a belt. So I have one from a Dinah,
I have one from East Lake, I have one from Augusta,

(22:42):
I have one from Metalist. I've got one from Inverness.
I've got probably ten in my collection now. But anyways,
getting back to my win in me Dinah, that was
my first big momentum push um after coming off of
a win, and I had a pretty solid, uh, pretty
solid semester after that. You know, I had a couple

(23:05):
more top twenties UM, just kind of moving in the
right direction, but I hadn't really hit that like next
level type of thing. UM. And then obviously COVID hit UM.
The next spring, I got to play in one event
and I think I finished top ten at that event. UM.
And then uh, we were in the public parking lot

(23:28):
in Augusta getting rest ready for Augusta University's home tournament,
and we found out that everything was canceled. Uh. We
just got a text from our our a d saying, Hey,
you know there's this thing called COVID that that's happening
now and they're canceling all the tournaments. They're canceling UM

(23:49):
n C double as, they're canceling all the postseason, and
seniors are done and I was heartbroken. I remember sitting
in the van trying to suck tears back into my
eyes because I didn't want to seem like I was
like overly emotional or I don't know why I didn't
necessarily want to cry, but I didn't. But I was
sitting in the front seat with my lip just quivering

(24:12):
and feeling so lost that my my season was over,
and my coaches, uh, we're you know, trying obviously trying
to comfort us. My team was trying to comfort us.
There were two other seniors on the team as well
that that UM had their season cut short. And so
after that, I went back to Clemson to to meet

(24:33):
up with my boyfriend and just kind of ride out
the whole COVID thing. You know, we had planned on
moving to Oregon, and I had a job kind of
as an assistant pro type thing up at Tokot Golf
Course up there, which is my home golf course now,
and he got a job as a fisheries biologist. You know.
I was going to go into the like class A
side of things and just work towards getting my class

(24:54):
A UM in my like my p G A card,
and uh, as we were moving up there. My assistant
coach called me and he was like, I know you're
gonna say no, and I know you don't want to
hear it, but there's a possible opportunity for a fifth
year for seniors. I just want you to consider it.
I don't want you to say anything right now. I

(25:15):
just want you to think about it, you know. And
I told him, I was like, you know, my answer,
like I'll think about it. Like I couldn't tell him
no because of everything they've done for me, and like
tell him no at the time, but I told him
i'd keep an open mind. And so, like pretty much
every day for the next month, someone called me. Whether
it was a teammate or a coach, assistant coach, head coach,

(25:37):
whoever it was, someone was calling me trying to tell me,
you know, hey, take your fifth year. And so I
finally started seriously considering it when my assistant coach called
me and told me that I could get my master's
degree um with that fifth year and I would be
on scholarship for my fifth year. And so my parents,
you know, we weren't trying to push me too hard,

(25:58):
but we're trying to push me into the direct and
You're stupid if you don't do this, and so I
was really starting to consider it, but I knew that
that would mean I'd have to move back to Oxford.
I'd have to leave Oregon, you know, my new home
that I fell in love with. And uh, I think
the deciding factor for me was when my boyfriend looked
at me and he said, you you have to do it,

(26:20):
like you're stupid. If you don't, it's gonna suck doing
long distance. But it is. It is what it is,
and it's a free master's degree. You get to go
back and play another full season and you get to
finish what you started. And so I called my assistant
coach and I told him I'd come back for a
fifth year. And that was the best decision I ever
made in my life. Even at that time, I wasn't

(26:42):
fully committed to my fifth year and I just I
am so lucky that I that I was able to
do that UM. And so because of that, during my
fifth year, we got into East Lake UM into the
east Lake Cup and actually won there as well. With
one of my closest friends, Ellen Hume. Her and I

(27:02):
won the individual Medalists honors UM at that event. And
then UM, that win kind of helped me going forward
to getting into the Gusta National Women's Ameter. And so
the year before UM it got canceled because of COVID,
but I was actually on the alternates list. I missed
getting into it by like one or two UM. And

(27:25):
so this next year I got into ANNLA, which was
always a goal of mine when I was at Clemson.
That was never something that I thought I would ever
be able to get into in my life. But I
was able to get into it, and UM, that was
because my coaches had pushed me so hard to improve

(27:46):
my game and to be the person, like not only
person but athlete that I am today. And so the
guest of National Women's Ameter was an incredible experience. I
can't can't even begin to touch on how amazing that
was being able to get to play Augusta in a
tournament setting. UM. And then obviously after the Augusta National

(28:09):
Women's Ameter, we went on to win the one national
championship as a team, which was dare I say it
better than the Augusta National Women's Ammeter. So please make
sure to tune in next week when I talk about
the National Championship. I'm going to take you through the
entire week, some fun stories from that week, and uh

(28:32):
kind of give you the inside scoop on our wins. So,
as always, thanks for listening to The Bertie Bunch on
the College Athlete Network. Please subscribe so you don't miss
an episode. I'm Kennedy Swan and we'll talk to you soon.
Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Digger? The

(29:00):
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