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The Shanks Gator
December 30, 2023

Good Morning. Welcome to Shanks. Thank you to today’s sponsor Propellor, who are building the first group parlay app, where you can create tickets with your absolute boys and then yell at the weak link for screwing up a leg.

The Waste Management Open Giveaway winner has been emailed. Please check your spam, James.

Golf Fact: Tiger Woods turns 48 today. 

Here's what we've got for ya today:

  • Which State Has The Best Golfers?

  • Harold Varner Gets DUI

  • Shots Heard Round The World

  • Inside The PIF-PGA Negotiations

  • Thing We’d Buy If We Weren’t Broke

Which State Has The Best Golfers?

The USGA has released their official “Average Handicap By State” rankings for 2023.

Which state do you think has the worst average handicap?

Surprise! Florida has the worst average handicap index of any state, hard to believe, we know, but its true.

Actually, it’s not that hard to believe when you consider there’s a lot of retirees down there who’ve never played golf before and think an average round of golf should take 6 hours.

Not surprising, though, is that all of the top states are below the Mason-Dixon line, where golf can be a year round thing.

With Propellor

Parlays With Friends

Propellor is the only daily fantasy sports platform where you compete on a team with your friends instead of alone against them. 

The Propellor beta is out now and they are looking for early users to help work out the kinks. Shanks subscribers who sign up will be entered into a special giveaway for a $350 Golf Galaxy gift card!

Start playing at PlayPropellor.com and be on the lookout for Golf props starting with the Waste Management Open in February!”

Harold Varner Gets DUI

Harold Varner, one of LIVs better golfers, has been arrested for DUI over the weekend in North Carolina, throwing the Range Goats entire season into jeopardy.

He blew a .16, which is two-times the legal limit for anyone but my grandma, who is from a time where you could drink and drive as long as you put a seatbelt around the case of beer.

Does this make Harold an irredeemable POS? Of course not.

But if you’re wondering, his bosses (Saudi Royal Family) would subject their own citizens to a public flogging for the offense + jail time.

Shots Heard Round The World

Inside The PIF-PGA Negotiations

First and foremost, this article is long, with an estimated read time of 15 minutes.

Second, it’s well done and provides as much detail and insight as you can get with these negotiations, but if you’re burned out on the whole thing and just want the summary, we got you.

Here are our main takeaways:

  • LIV cannot exist in its current form and also fold into the PGA Tour, because LIV has too many events for pros to bounce between both tours and loses too much money for anyone besides its current operator to run it.

  • Who’s watching? In weeks that LIV events on the CW ran up against Tour events on CBS and NBC, the Tour averaged some 1.89 million viewers, roughly nine times the viewership of LIV, which averaged roughly 200,000 viewers — and reportedly dropped in viewership as the season went on.

  • The Tour’s financial future is pretty stable. As Monahan likes to point out, the Tour has $10 billion in contracted revenue through 2030. Half of that comes from $5 billion in media rights contracts with CBS, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN. The other half comes from $5 billion in sponsorship deals with big-time corporations like FedEx, AT&T and Mastercard.

  • LIV had virtually zero revenue in 2022, their lawyers were forced to admit. Recent reports suggest revenue under $100 million for their 2023 season.

  • The biggest unknown with LIV remains its bank account and the man controlling those strings. As a product, it is wildly unprofitable and will continue to be unprofitable for the immediate future. From that perspective, the PIF would benefit from LIV merging with the PGA Tour and compromising on the future structure of its team events — a move that would both stop the bleeding financially and give LIV a much-needed dose of reputability.

  • Could the PGA Tour press on without the PIF involved in the deal? It could. Despite the news cycle and the LIV defections, the Tour still has the stronger product, the stronger players and a strong institutional advantage — plus it has all but secured a major investment from the SSG. Still, shutting out the PIF would mean making the bet that the Saudis wouldn’t double (or triple, or quintuple) their investment in an effort to crush the existing pro game.

Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

Looking to spend some Christmas cash?

Keep your big dog looking rad, clean and ready to rip with The Flush Puppy driver headcover by Birds of Condor. It’s waterproof and fits all standard drivers.

That’s all folks! See you Monday where we will take a look at the opening lines for The Sentry.