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⛳️ Irish Open Bets
Plus: 72 Bottles of Wine, Captain America, and more golf news.
The Shanks Gator
September 06, 2023
Good afternoon! Welcome to Shanks, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming this week… meaning we have something to bet on. Let’s ride.
Trivia: Who won 2 of 4 majors in 2008?
Answer Below.
Here's what we've got for ya today:
Doin Lines: Irish Open
They Don’t Drink Like They Used To
Shots Heard Round The World
The Time Patrick Reed Was Captain America
Thing We’d Buy If We Weren’t Broke
Doin Lines: Irish Open
🚩 Location: The K Club, Ireland
💰 Purse: $6M - $850k to first.
👑 Previous Winner: Adrian Meronk
👀 Watch On: Golf Channel & Peacock
The Field at a Glance
Several big names are in the field, including Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton and Padraig Harrington. Meanwhile, the player who won in 2022, Adrian Meronk, returns to defend the title.
The Course
The K Club in Ireland has played host to the Irish Open, the European Open, and the Ryder Cup.
Fun Fact: It’s the only Irish venue to ever host a Ryder Cup.
Previous Winners
2022: Adrian Meronk
2021: Lucas Herbert
2020: John Catlin
2019: Jon Rahm
2018: Russell Knox
2017: Jon Rahm
2016: Rory McIlroy
Shanks Picks
The last three winners of the Irish Open have all lead the field in greens in regulation.
Outright Winner: Adrian Meronk +2500
Meronk was the odd man out for Team Europe, maybe he wins this event in back to back years to remind them what a mistake they made? It was a pretty controversial snub, after all.
Top Five: Jordan Smith +800
This is the big brain analytics play. He was first in GIR this year and last. Let’s see what the stats can do for our pocketbooks.
Top Ten: Billy Horschel +275
gotta bet on at least one American right? It hasn’t been Billy’s year, but he finished his season strong. Let’s keep it rolling.
Top Twenty: Paddy +225
The last two times we bet Paddy, he helped get us paid. We can’t ignore the ole grinder competing in his home open.
Longshot: Thorbjorn Olesen +5000
He won the 2022 British Masters, and is 14th in the field in GIR.
Make The Cut Parlay: Adrian Meronk, Rory McIlroy, Min Woo Lee, Aaron Rai, Padraig Harrington, and Billy Horschel to all make the cut. +335
It’s been too long since we’ve had a MTCP!
They Don’t Drink Like They Used To
Yesterday, Paul McGinley, the Golf Channel host, LIV Hater, 4x DP World Tour Winner, and Ryder Cup alum went on a little tangent about how back in his day, the Ryder Cup was more fun.
They drank more, they traveled together, and it was way less about the money.
Fact: Paul McGinley has spilled more beer on his tie than the last few Ryder Cup teams have drank, combined.
“I was amazed even when I was captain in 2014, nobody drank. I mean, nobody,” McGinley said. “I wasn’t like, ‘It’s a Ryder Cup, I’m not going to drink.’ It was a case of, ‘No, I’m not drinking, I don’t drink when I play. It’s not even a question.'”
What did it used to be like?
“I remember one of the backroom staff telling us on a Saturday night … we had consumed 72 bottles of wine already on Saturday night,” McGinley said on GOLF Today, “and they had to go and re-order.”
Shots Heard Round The World
The Art Of War: Why Team Europe Captain Has Been Reading More.
The Time Patrick Reed Was Captain America
Ahead of the Ryder Cup, Sports Illustrated is looking back at some of their favorite moments.
The 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine was intense, hard-fought, loud and a ton of fun. So, in those respects, a pretty standard Ryder Cup. But what I’ll always remember is the same thing anyone who attended or watched on television will always remember: Rory vs. Reed.
The quick backstory: In 2016, the U.S. had lost three consecutive Ryder Cups, and the ’16 team featured a host of tweaks on the heels of the ’14 drubbing in Gleneagles. That loss begat the Phil Mickelson post-event press conference, which begat the U.S. Ryder Cup task force, which begat more player ownership of the team, which begat the Davis Love captaincy, which begat … even more pressure on the U.S. to finally snap its drought against the pesky Europeans, who always seemed to come up clutch.
This is all preamble to the greatest Ryder Cup singles match I’ve seen. I suspect it’s also the best singles match anyone alive has ever seen. I don’t know how you top it.
Golf Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke
Just about every single Caddyshanks newsletter is going to have some amount of Ryder Cup chatter until the dang thang actually happens. That being said, let’s check out the beautiful and expensive Ryder Cup 2023 Collection by Footjoy.
Ryder Cup Multi-Stripe Self Collar ($98) – To us, it looks like the one of the “official jerseys” of the Ryder Cup for the USA. While wearing this on the course might not give you superhuman abilities like hitting incredible blind flop shots like Jordan Spieth, you’ll look good
Ryder Cup Color Block Half-Zip Mid-Layer ($125) – With the fall season coming up, you’ll need to be prepared for those chilly Sunday morning tee times before 8 hours of commercial free football. That being said, this handsome half-zip should be your go to. Just don’t get any ketchup on it when you eat that hotdog at the turn.
1927 Trophy Hoodie ($240) – $240? For a hoodie? $240. Really. It has “LUXURIOUS MERINO WOOL” so that totally justifies that price tag, right?... I mean what is so special about merino wool anyways? Still, looks comfy.
Ryder Cup Full Zip Vest($125) – Finance bros of America are salivating at the sight of this highly coveted vest. We poke fun but we’d love to be swinging the big stick in this soft shell (weather permitting of course).
Trivia Answer: That’s right, Ole Padraig Harrington.
That’s a wrap, dimple heads. See you Saturday morning.