Golf’s final major championship of 2025 is in the books, which makes this weekend the perfect time for the sport’s most anticipated movie in years to make its debut.
The world premiere was Monday night in the Big Apple, and the biggest name in the game, Scottie Scheffler, was there with wife Meredith in tow and the Claret Jug in his grasp.
Sunday, Scottie won the British Open. Last night, back across the pond, but a time zone away from home in Dallas, he settled in to check out Happy Gilmore 2.
He is among a gallery of famous people, including some of the world’s best golfers, who have cameos in the film, which tees off Friday on Netflix. (Note to self: subscribe to Netflix. I’m sure there’s more to see there than Happy 2, but I’ll start there and surf around later.).
Adam Sandler rekindles his role as the hockey player turned touring pro, almost 30 years after the original Happy Gilmore hit the big screens. There was no Netflix, Apple2, Amazon Prime, etc. in those days. We lined up, overpaid for cokes, popcorn and candy, plopped down in a reasonably comfortable chair (nothing like those loungers in today’s movie houses), and discovered Bob Barker and Verne Lundquist were funny, funny guys. Who knew?
Sandler taped a guest spot with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show and said Happy 2 was not a long-term dream. In fact, he said that in the run-up to the premiere of the original, he and his NYU college roomie Tim Herlihy wondered just how stupid they were to try to make a funny golf movie that would be compared to the 1981 gem Caddyshack.
The Rodney Dangerfield-Chevy Chase-Bill Murray epic gave us lines that are repeated five decades later.
“Oh, it looks good on you, though.”
“Thank you very little.”
“So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”
And many, many more.
You don’t get those in Happy Gilmore. Sandler’s got a different style, leaning into slapstick while blending in a strong sense of absurdity and making it seem he’s the off-kilter guy down the street (the title role in Billy Madison) or the exaggerated knucklehead (Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy).
It works. His films have grossed over $2 billion (Happy Gilmore accounts for “just” $41 million. Thought it would be three times that.) and his latest is the first in a four-film deal with Netflix for $250 million.
“Not too shabby” – which is one of the best lines in his masterpiece “The Chanukah Song,” which made the Dec. 3, 1994 Saturday Night Live unforgettable as Sandler contemplated what Jewish kids like him dealt with during the holiday season. Being Jewish, he sang, is cool.
“We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby
Harrison Ford’s a quarter Jewish, not too shabby
Some people think that Ebenezer Scrooge is
Well he’s not, but guess who is — all Three Stooges
So many Jews are in showbiz
Tom Cruise isn’t, but I heard his agent is!”
This is the mind that two years later gave us Happy Gilmore, and now, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
The Happy 2 cameo list includes plenty of Scheffler’s pro tour pals – though not his best bud, LSU product Sam Burns, who has managed to keep the low profile he craves despite rising among the world’s top 25 players. Scheffler is just too successful to entirely dodge the spotlight.
Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, John Daly, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Nelly Korda are among the top golfers who make appearances, along with Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce, Post Malone, Eminem, Bad Bunny, former Saints running back Reggie Bush, Stephen A. Smith, Dan Patrick, and others who are famous for reasons I do not understand (Ocasio?).
All I needed was Sandler in his lead role and Julie Bowen in anything she wants to wear. My biggest question? How did the Manning boys miss the cut?
At some point this weekend, I’ll try to figure that out. How much is Netflix?
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com