⛳️ BMW Championship Bets

Wedge season, Twitter Beefs, and more.

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Josey Orr, Jay Huffman & Chase Majerus
August 16, 2023

Good afternoon! Welcome to Shanks. Just another reminder - you dimple heads voted to make this newsletter a Monday-Wednesday-Saturday newsletter.

Oh, and if you’re reading this… that means you’re automatically entered into a quarterly drawing to win a $1000 Golf Galaxy gift card. That’s just our way of saying thanks for being a reader.

Trivia: In the 1980s only one PGA player won two Masters titles. Who was it?

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

  • Doin Lines: BMW Championship

  • Wedge Season

  • Golf Shots Heard Round The World

  • Twitter Beef

  • Golf Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

Doin Lines: BMW Championship

This week, The Tour heads to Illinois for the second leg of the FedEx playoffs.

Only the top 50 golfers on tour have qualified for the four day no-cut event and only the top 30 will advance to next weeks Tour Championship.

🚩 Location: Olympia Fields

💰 Purse: $20M - Winner gets $3.6M

👑 Previous Winner: Patrick Cantlay (2x)

👀 Watch On: Golf Channel, CBS, ESPN+

The Field at a Glance

50 golfers. No cut. Four Days. Big Money.

The Course

Olympia Fields is a tough track.

The last time this event was played at Olympia, only five golfers shot under-par for the weekend.

Jon Rahm outlasted Dustin Johnson to win it, but no one did better than 4-under for the tournament.

The course is long, the rough is thick, there’s water in play on about half the holes, and there are 91 bunkers on the course.

41% GIR rate from the rough, but due to some rain conditions should be a little softer this week than the last time we saw the pros take on Olympia.

Past Winners at The BMW:

  • 2022: Patrick Cantlay (-14) Wilmington Country Club

  • 2021: Patrick Cantlay (-27) Caves Valley

  • 2020: Jon Rahm (-4) Olympia Fields

  • 2019: Justin Thomas (-25) Medinah

  • 2018: Keegan Bradley (-20) Aronimink

  • 2017: Marc Leishman (-23) Conway Farms

💰Shanks Picks💰

Outright Winner: Viktor Hovland +1600

  • Hovland has the length to compete here, but he also ranks among the top in the field in SG:APP from distance. Due to the average length of approach shots at Olympia, we really like Viktor this week.

Top Five: Patrick Cantlay +220

  • It’s really hard to win the same event three times in a row, especially at three different courses. Cantlay lost in a playoff to Lucas Glover last week, but we still expect him to perform well here.

Top Ten: Tyrrell Hatton +200

  • We got burned on our boy Tyrrell last week. How about a little redemption?

Top Twenty: Byeong Hun An +115

  • This is our “his recent form has been really good” play.

Long Shot: Cameron Young +3500

  • He’s got the length, there’s been a trend of longshot winners recently, and he just hasn’t met expectations so far this year. Maybe he gets it done.

FRL: Tony Finau +3300

  • There’s no cut, so we can’t do a “make the cut parlay”. Instead, we’re backing a bomber for first round leader. Let’s go Big Tone.

Reader Request: “You need to give Tommy Fleetwood some love. He cashed for Shanks last week (Top 5 +610). Don’t do Tommy dirty. You owe him his first outright win.”

Okay fine, we will throw a little on Tommy Fleetwood +2200 to appease this reader.

Wedge Season

ALERT! New hot drop release!

This one is for the wedge heads who know everything there is to know about loft, bounce, flop, and grind. And sure, that sounds wildly sexual, but these are actually terms you should know when purchasing your next wedges. Specifically, the brand new TaylorMade Milled Grind 4 Wedge available September 8th .

  • Price: $180 standard; $230 for MyMG4 custom colors

  • Lofts: 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, and 60 degrees

  • Spin: MG4 uses lasers to burn diagonal lines in between the grooves. That means moisture won’t get in the way of a clean grab between clubface, groove edge, and ball

  • Grind: 7 sole grinds for 23 distinct options

  • Shaft: Dynamic Gold Tour Issue wedge shaft (115 g)

TaylorMade wedges are some of the most widely used wedges in the game of golf. It is expected that with the introduction to center of gravity changes and, well, everything above, this should remain in the top 3 most popular wedges.

Check out a great video review here!

Golf Shots Heard Round The World

Twitter (X) Beef

If you’ve been reading Shanks for a while, you know we love to give you updates from Golf Twitter. Well, we’ve got a treat for you this week in the form of Lee Westwood and Eddie Pepperel arguing about OWGR.

It all starts with Lee responding to a post about the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR).

Lee Westwood, and other LIV guys, think that OWGR is antiquated and doesn’t reflect the top golfers in the world. That’s why Lee scoffed.

Eddie Pepperel, another professional golfer, then responded to Lee…

Eddie went on to comment about how LIV rewards poor performance, and how professional golf has become “all about the money”.

Lee then asked about PIP and TGL…

Never heard someone use “playing like a turnip” as an insult before. Feels very English. We like it though. Gonna crown Eddie the victor of this one.

Trivia Answer: 

Seve Ballesteros

Golf Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

We had originally planned to run some Good Good merch here, but then we came across this tweet and had to immediately change course.

A select group of investors is swinging big with the launch of a 7-star, premium golf destination called The Bays Golf Experience and Suites. For the first time, Frisco residents and global executives will have an amenity-rich destination for themselves and their golf-enthusiast clients in one of the most convenient and attractive areas of the United States.

The luxurious, five-star Bays Golf Experience and Suites will span 18 acres and offer breathtaking views of the PGA of America's new headquarters in Frisco, Texas. In addition to the private hitting bays nestled inside individual suites, the global golf destination will feature four stories of top-tier golf entertainment with the largest television in Frisco, the most advanced TaylorMade golf technology and custom club fittings as well as concierge-level service for any request.

The Resort Will Open Spring 2025.

That's all folks! See ya’ll Saturday morning for a weekend bet, and recaps for rounds 1 and 2 of the BMW Championship.