It turns out that my u360 had some screws loose and the magnetic disk was hitting some screw heads. I fixed that but then it turns out that my player 1 sticks magnetic disk is magnetically unbalanced (if you rotate the disk and not the shaft, the cross hair does not stay centered, especially compared to player 2).
Which now makes sense because player 2 was working fine and player 1 always needs re-calibrating.