⛳️ Super Quick Update: The Players

Plus: The Blow Pig, Secret Meeting with PIF, and Scottie's Nikes.

Author

Josey Orr
March 16, 2024

Good Morning! Welcome to Shanks. Reminder: The Players Championship is live on your TV at 2pm ET today and at 1pm ET tomorrow, both days on NBC.

For ESPN+ subscribers, the golf is streaming live at this very moment.

Golf Trivia: How many times did Jack Nicklaus win The Players? Answer below.

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

  • Quick Update: The Players Championship

  • Players Nearing Secret Mtg With PIF Leader

  • 25 Time Club Champion

  • Shots Heard Round The World

  • Shot Of The Year?

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

Quick Update: The Players Championship

The Blow Pig Is In The Lead

Wait, what?

Yes, according to this post from NLU, people call Wyndham Clark “The Blow Pig”.

Explanation: This has nothing to do with cocaine, believe it or not. It’s an emoji based nickname. Very 2024.

On to the golf…Wyndham Clark carded back-to-back 65’s and sits in solo first place at fourteen-under. It’s been a dominant display of golf by Clark through two rounds.

The dude has been on a tear for a year straight and is showing no signs of slowing down.

Pretty crazy, considering he had a total of zero wins in his first five years on tour.

On top of that, he had serious anger issues, rivaled only by Tyrrell Hatton.

All the more reason why it’s so confusing that he wants to shorten fields to 100 people. It takes time for some golfers to blossom into a star.

Speaking to the press after the round, he talked a good bit about his mental game and his approach to putting.

Working through his anger and disappointments were a focal point during his episode of Full Swing and he’s really opened up about all of it, which is great.

But he also said yesterday that things truly changed when he switched to the Odyssey Jailbreak Putter. This just goes to show you that if you’re struggling on the greens, buying a new putter will 100% fix everything.

Earlier in the year, as a result of excellent putting, he set the scoring record at Pebble Beach with a 60.

Through two rounds at The Players, he’s leading the field in Strokes Gained: Putting (+7.727).

What about everybody else?

Wyndham Clark has a four-stroke lead over Xander Schauffele and Nick Taylor.

They are our live bet candidates for the weekend.

Behind those two sit Matt Fitzpatrick and Maverick McNealy at nine-under.

There are four golfers within striking distance of Clark at eight-under: Scottie Scheffler, Matti Schmid, Corey Conners, and Tom Hoge.

If Scottie Scheffler can overcome a six shot deficit, he would be the first player in history to win The Players back-to-back.

Shanks Picks Recap

Maybe one of these weeks we will be smart enough to bet The Blow Pig.

Winner: Will Zalatoris

Well, that didn’t work out well. Despite being one of the hottest players on tour heading into The Players, Willy The Stick cooled off big time this weekend. He missed the cut. Our hedge, Max Homa, didn’t fair much better and just made the cut line on the number (-1).

Top Five: Hideki Matsuyama

This one is still in play as Hideki has been rock solid so far this year. He is six-under and T14 after two rounds.

Top Ten: Doug Ghim

He is currently T34 and three-under. There’s still a chance for this one.

Top Twenty: Min Woo Lee

It’s not always pretty, but it’s always entertaining. How about this 60 foot birdie putt on 17 to make the cut on the number?

Longshot: Jason Day

Jason has played great. He’s six-under and T-14 along with Hideki, but he’s still eight shots off of Wyndham Clarks lead. If there’s anywhere you can drop eight strokes over two rounds, it’s TPC Sawgrass.

MTCP: Spieth and Ben An both missed the cut and killed the parlay.

Live Bet: Matt Fitzpatrick or Nick Taylor +1400 via Fanduel

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PGA Tour Players Nearing Secret Meeting With Saudi Fund Boss

According to Eamon Lynch at Golfweek, top tour players are being urged to meet with Yasir Al-Rumayyan and that meeting could happen as soon as Monday.

According to the report:

  • It’s not clear yet whether the meeting will happen, or if the powerful Saudi chairman will cancel last minute.

  • There’s six players on the advisory board, and five of them, with the exception of Tiger Woods, are already in Ponte Vedra; Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson.

  • The meeting is intended to be an icebreaker between PIF and Tour Players

25 Time Club Champion

Shots Heard Round The World

Shot Of The Year?

Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

ICYMI: Scottie Scheffler revealed on Instagram that he had worked with Nike to design some custom Airmax 1’s. We think they look pretty clean, but you need to be a Nike Member to order them and frankly, we don’t know that that entails.

He did make a funny post on Instagram where he unboxed the shoes and pretended like they were new, but there was some dirt on the bottom.

C’mon Scottie, you’re supposed to post before you wear them!

That’s all folks! See you Monday.

Trivia Answer: Three times.