Travelers Update: The golf parlay is dead. Long live the golf parlay.

Good Afternoon. Welcome to Shanks, an underground golf & gambling ring, enter through the alleyway, knock twice, and say the password.

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

• Update: Travelers Championship

• Twitter Ribbing & A Gambling Rabbit Hole

• Top 5 Athletes of All Time

• Pure, so Pure.

• Golf Shots Heard Round The World

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

Update: Travelers Championship

We’ve got ourselves a good, ole fashioned, birdie fest going on at TPC River Highlands.

The man with the lowest score after round one? Denny McCarthy, who was THIS close to shooting a 59 yesterday.

Right behind him, you have Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott, the most handsome man in golf, sitting at 8-under. We bet exactly zero of these golfers.

What about the rest of the leaderboard?

Scottie Chef 👨‍🍳 : This dude is, and continues to be, just so god damned good at golf. I don’t even get it man. He is 203 under par for the season, 48 strokes better than any other player. Yet, golf is such a beautiful beast that he hasn’t won much. If the wand gets hot, look out. Oh, he was -7 in round one.

Shane Lowry: The big irishmen quietly shot six under. Worth a flyer at +2200?

Chez Reavie and Eric Cole: They are T5 with Lowry and Fanduel has them at +6000 and +4500 to win. Of course, this is the same part of the newsletter where I suggested that Bryan Harman and Wyndham Clark wouldn’t hold on at the US Open and could not have been more wrong.

💰 Shanks Picks 💰

Morikawa has officially earned himself a one month betting ban at Shanks. He puked all over himself yesterday and shot +4. Thereby destroying both our Top Ten bet and our first ever parlay, most likely. (A true gambler never gives up).

Here’s how our picks from Wednesday are doing + some weekend bet considerations:

Winner: Viktor Hovland -2, seven off the lead. Not great, Cotton, not great, but still a lot of golf left.

Top Five: Patrick Cantlay +250. The Human Tortoise loves this course. He is currently -5 and T8 after round one.

Top Ten: Collin Morikawa +240

Top Twenty: Ludvig Aberg +360. THE ROOK is T28 after round one. We have life.

Long Shots: Corey Conners +7000 finished the first round -3. Still might be worth a flyer if you didn’t grab him Wednesday.

Parlay: Patrick Cantlay Top Five, Morikawa Top 10, Scottie Scheffler Top 20, Tommy Fleetwood Top 30, Viktor Hovland Top 40, Jon Rahm Top 40. +5261

Ladies PGA Champ: Rose Zhang +1600 (Hop on this train, maybe?)

Weekend Bet: YOU KNOW I AM TAKING THE YOUNG MAN SAHITH THEEGALA +8000. He’s currently -4 and I can’t help myself. Remember his heartbreak last year? Redemption time baby.

Twitter Ribbing & Gambling Rabbit Hole

I (Chase) was doing a little ribbing on Twitter to fellow CaddyShanks writer (Josey) for making a less-than-desirable bet on Collin Morikawa (he just don’t got that dog in him imhfo), and I had the thought, “just how often are people EVER winning these bets?”

• In this article written by golf.com, written June 6, 2020, “The favorites won at about a 10.5 percent clip — 38 tournaments, four winners, 34 losers.”

• Thanks to actionnetwork.com, an article written September 23, 2021 says, “Golf bettors in America bet more times per week than any major professional sports. They also have the highest percentage of bettors spending more than $1,000 a week.”

• Golfdigest.com, on October 29, 2020, had some good info as well saying, “Strokes gained/approach-the-green is the one stat that comes up most. By definition, SG/APP is: “the number of approach strokes a player takes from specific locations and distances as measured against a statistical baseline to determine the player’s strokes gained or lost on a hole.” Oh and also this, “Over the 2018-’19 PGA Tour season, a golfer’s made-cut percentage correlated strongly with his strokes gained/approach number.”

• Last quote from perfectput.com, “Betting on professional golf is estimated to be in the $4.5 - $5 billion in handle range. For context, the NFL is estimated to be over $20 billion in handle. Golf represents about 8% of the total handle in the United States — fairly impressive.”

Man, y’all golf gamblers got it hard! There’s SO MUCH to consider, and there’s so many people considering all sorts of angles, all the time! I applaud thee. Even my guy Josey.

What do you call someone greater at gambling than you? A better bettor.

Golf Shots Heard Round The World

New Putters: Taylormade has released an all new TP Reserve lineup with six different putter heads available. Check em here.

Trophies > Golfballs: Rory gave his hole-in-one ball to a lucky fan yesterday.

Guy wins ONE US Open: JT gets caught on hot mic busting Wyndham Clarks Balls.

Top 5 Of All Time?

Pure, So Pure.

Rory wins this award two weeks in a row! Beautiful, high-draw ace!

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

America’s favorite holiday is coming up and if you’re like me, you’ve already been celebrating the whole golf season by demolishing hot dogs and sappin’ ice cold so… what exactly am I going to do differently on July 4^th ?

I’ll tell you what, have some American freakin’ pride. Which, these days, is a bit of a touchy subject. I get it. But to me personally, I don’t see any foul play is waving Old Glory, watching kids freak out over fireworks, and toasting to the GOOD things America has done. Speaking of doing some good, I think Travis Matthew may have done something good finally! Yes, you heard me. Finally.

Save your boos. I know I’m in the minority when I say I don’t love Travis Matthew. But this Red, White, and Blue collection is really dope. I particularly enjoyed receiving a text from my girlfriend that said “Very you” and a link to this saucy shirt. Do yourself a favor and check out this gear. And don’t be afraid to wave your freak flag on this great American holiday.

That's all folks! Drink Responsibly. Round 2 Update: Collin Morikawa is -5 on the day and -1 for the tournament through 13 holes. He may actually make the cut. We write this Newsletter Friday mornings before the second round tees off, most weeks.