In this Issue

1.  🎉 Happy New Year and Welcome to Season 2024

2. 🏆 PGAT kicks off with The Sentry in Maui

3.  🍴 Quick Bites

   • Rory’s backflip on LIV

   • Framework Agreement negotiations extended

   • Cam Smith gets married

   • JDay makes a horror apparel switch

4.  ✅ The Shank Show’s Top 5 Predictions for 2024

🎉 Happy New Year and Welcome to Season 2024

In this, our first issue of the year, we'd like to wish all our “Shankers” a very happy New Year and welcome you to the 2024 season. We think big things are going to happen in the world of golf this year, and as such The Shank Show also has big plans to match. We’ve really appreciated all the positive feedback received from subscribers across our first 20 or so issues and we are committed to building on the content you have enjoyed last year to provide you with a better newsletter with new and interesting content across the course of 2024. Some of the things we have planned over the next 12 months include:

• More of the good stuff - “quick bites”, tournament recaps and previews, schedule of the week and funny social media grabs will remain part of our formula for 2024.

• Course reviews - over the year we’ll review various courses to provide you with our perspective and insights into the playing experience including layout, landscape, playability, cost and value for money. These reviews will be complimented with Instagram Reels to give you a more comprehensive appreciation of the course - so be sure to follow us on Instagram here.

• On the course reporting from tournaments including LIV Golf Adelaide and the Australian PGA Championships- we’ll be on the ground for what will be the two biggest events of the Australian golf calendar and tweeting out live from The Grange and Royal Queensland Golf Clubs. Follow along on X.

• Major Championship Tipping Comp - this one is still under development, so we’ll keep the details for later in the year, but we will provide the opportunity for our community of Shankers to put their golf knowledge and tipping prowess to the test in arguably the biggest Major of the year. So, stay tuned for more details 😉.

The above is just a sample of what The Shank Show has lined up for 2024. We hope you are excited and look forward to having you along for the ride. As always, if you enjoy reading The Shank Show, we’d appreciate you passing on this issue to your golfing mates and encouraging them to subscribe using the button below.

🏆 PGAT kicks off with The Sentry in Maui

The Sentry Tournament is the first PGA Tour event of 2024, featuring a field of 39 winners from the previous season plus a selection of other invited players which have met certain criteria. The tournament will be held at the renowned Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort in Maui, Hawaii. The Plantation track is a par 73 layout that offers spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the neighboring islands. The course is known for its wide fairways, undulating greens, and strong winds that can challenge the players’ skills and strategy. You may also remember DJ’s 430-yard drive which almost scored him an ace on the Par 4, 12th.

The field will be missing defending champ Jon Rahm, who has made an unexpected and shock move to LIV Golf. Notables in the field will include Jordan Speith, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland and World Number 1, Scottie Scheffler. Aussies Jason Day and Cameron Davis are making the trip to Maui.

As a Signature Event for the PGAT, the tournament carries a total prize purse of $20 million, with the winner taking home $3.6 million and a bag of FedExCup points. The tournament also offers an invitation to the 2024 Masters at Augusta for the champion, if not already qualified. 🌺

You can watch all the action from Kapaula on FoxSports and Kayo from Friday 5 January to Monday 8 January 2024. The Main Coverage commences on Friday morning at 9am AEST, with Featured Groups from 3.30am AEST.

🍴 Quick Bites

So, as you enjoyed some time off over the Xmas and New Year period, you probably had better things to do than keep your finger on the pulse of world golf. No worries, we have you covered with these quick bites to bring you up to speed as we enter the 2024 season:

• Rory stages a massive backflip on LIV that an Olympic gymnasts would be proud of. He now says that he was overly quick to judge players who defected to LIV and that Jon Rahm has made an astute business decision in jumping ship. The humble pie eating of this guy is just all time. Golf Twitter of course is alight with speculation Rory might be moving to LIV - we highly doubt that.

• The deadline for finalising the Framework Agreement between the PGAT, PIF/LIV and the DPWT has been extended - or at least according to comms issued by Big Jay to PGAT players. There has been no confirmation or denial of this “extension” by the PIF or Yasir. The silence from those two parties is deafening. We predict there will be another round of announcements for new LIV signings in the coming weeks as LIV’s first event at Mayakoba draws closer.

• Cam Smith got married at the end of December 2023 in Brisbane at St. Stephen’s Cathedral with a reception that followed at Howard Smith Wharves. There were plenty of mullets to be seen and beers to be sculled. Congrats Smithy!

• Jason Day has made a horror apparel switch from NIKE to Malbon (yeah we’ve never heard of the brand either). The outfits are dead-set terrible and he looks more suited to hanging out with a bunch of mall rats at the local shopping centre than playing for Major championships. We long for the period where JDay partnered with TaylorMade and Adidas, whilst having Colin Swatton on the bag. Here’s Jason trying to explain the move to Malbon with a funky Instagram Reel.

malbongolf

View more on Instagram

✅ The Shank Show’s Top 5 Predictions for 2024

You heard it here first from The Shank Show - here are our Top 5 Golf Predictions for 2024:

1. The PIF will invest deeper into LIV, and LIV will have a much improved year with some format and broadcast changes that will make it more appealing to the OWGR, sponsors, fans and possible broadcast partners. Expect more defections from the PGAT and DPWT to LIV, and expect a number of LIV events to really pop - Adelaide, Hong Kong and Andalucia come to mind.

2. Big Jay will not last more than 6 months as CEO and Commissioner of the PGAT. His goose is cooked, and whilst the players have probably humoured him in allowing him to stay after the 6 June Framework Agreement announcement, he’s failed to clean up his mess. Dead man walking.

3. An Aussie will win a Major. Cam Smith, Jason Day, Adam Scott and Cam Davis all had wins on various tours in 2023 and played world class golf at certain times during the Majors. But our favourite to bag the next Major for Australia is Min Woo Lee. Woosy contended at the Masters, the US Open and the Players last year showing that he can certainly mix it with the big boys in the big events. He’ll be better for the experience gained in 2023 and we like his chances at Augusta for the Masters or at Pinehurst for the US Open.

4. The President’s Cup will unfortunately be a flop. It’s likely that the PGAT will fumble negotiations with the PIF and still view LIV as a major threat to its monopoly. Hence, LIV players won’t be picked for the International Team (e.g. Smith, Niemann, Pereira, Oosty) and they will get spanked by the US Team.

5. In response to more signings by LIV, the OWGR will be forced to make changes to its ranking system to retain its remaining credibility, and the Majors will look to adjust their entry criteria for their events to ensure they have the strongest possible fields.

We’ll see how these predictions pan out across the year. But one thing is for sure - we have another exciting calendar ahead in 2024 - so strap in and we’ll keep you on point with our weekly newsletter. We’ll be back next week and leave you with our Shank/Whiff of the Week…