Boring Golf, Bees and Beer

Good Afternoon. Welcome to Shanks. A newsletter for the fun side of golf. Like Obi Wan said "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."

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

• Update: Mexico Open / Bees

• LIV Singapore Round 1 Update

• Golf Shots Heard Round The World

• Beer Battles

• For The Group Chat

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

Like we mentioned Wednesday, there's only two top-50 golfers competing this week. The casual golf fan might call that a boring week, but there's no such thing as a boring week when you gamble on golf.

It's also never boring when you're playing golf and get attacked by a swarm of bees, which happened to some guys yesterday, but we will get into that later.

Solo Leader

Austin Smotherman is the solo leader after round one and guess what? He won this event before, but it was back in 2018 before it was an official tour event. Still, his name is already on the trophy. If you like him to hold on its +2000 via BetMGM. 

About those bees...

Here's a quote from Erik van Rooyen, the guy sitting in 2nd place.

"I just told my caddie, 'Bees, bees, bees.' And he looks at me like I'm crazy," van Rooyen said. "So I dropped down, then he sees them, he dropped down. Frankie and Chez, they look at me like I'm nuts and then 30 seconds later the bees just went right at them. It's funny, but certainly don't want to get stung by those bad boys."

Storyline to Bet:

Raul Pereda, the local kid, shot -6 in his tour debut. Would be cool to see a rookie from Mexico win the Mexican Open. Especially at +15000.

Shanks Picks Update:

Gary Woodland and Nicolai Hajgaard are both sitting pretty T14 and four-under.

Our long shot Akshay Bhattia is also within striking distance at -3.

They are all still available at pretty decent odds if you like em!

LIV Singapore Round 1 Update

If you were hoping to see LIVs most popular golfers play at a really high level, this tournament is where it’s at. As I write this, Cam Smith, Brooks Koepka, Talor Gooch, and Sergio Garcia are all tied for 1st at -5. Tied for 5th at -4 are Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen, Bryson DeChambeau, and Cameron Tringale.

The beginning of the tournament had a fascinating start with some of the course getting dumped on by the southeast Asian rain, and some of the course completely untouched and under the sun still! It’s so hot in Singapore (feels like 99 degrees currently) that only a couple holes later, Cam Smith, who was totally drenched, had complete dried off.

Some of the more notable moments include this insane shot from the cart path by Matthew Wolff, a long putt to put Brooks Koepka in a tie for 1st, and Sergio Garcia who looks to have finally found consistency in accuracy.

Play was suspended for lightning with only 5 holes left, and I went to bed before they continued!

Golf Shots Heard Round The World

PXG Founder: The billionaire founder of PXG (and GoDaddy) sounds off on LIV Golf, Trump and why he's changed his mind a lot lately.

PROV1 Quality, Lower Price: The team over at My Golf Spy has some Maxfli news.

Patricks Car: A trashed car with a VIN reportedly matching Patrick Reed’s Masters Porsche just sold at salvage auction.

Back On The Bag: Joe LaCava is on Steve Strickers bag this weekend in NOLA.

Beer Battles

No, we aren't talking about the dumbasses over at Bud Light.

We're talking about PGA vs LIV.

LIV Golf released some numbers from their big weekend in Australia.

I found one thing to be verrrrry interesting...

They consumed 116,978 beers over the weekend.

For context, Waste Management sold about 750,000 beers over four days.

Which begs the question, can Australians even drink? Dorks.

via Joe Pomp

For The Group Chat

NFL Draft Day always leads to some good memes. Also, totally unrelated to golf, but crazy how good the Philadelphia Eagles are at drafting. They won the draft again!

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

A bag fit for king DJ Khaled, Louis Vuitton is selling this modest $22,200 golf bag where you can carry the clubs that will shoot you +22 thru the front 9.

According to the product details, you’ll also get a washable LV monogram towel, a removeable zipped rain cover, and a set of 3 balls and 4 tees. You’ll also be saddled with $22k in credit card debt, so that’s neat.

That's all folks! See you Monday, drink responsibly.