I like Owen Wilson for the most part as he is one of the few comedic actors that I feel can totally pull of actual drama as well. he's just a good all-around actor IMO but for whatever reason mostly takes on comedy roles. It's probably the easy paycheck.
Anyway, this series takes on an all-too-familiar approach of a washed up sports star that finds a renewed interest in the game because of some youth that shows real promise in the same sport they used to excel in and while I have only watched 2 episodes of this one, I have kind of figured out where this is going and could probably predict a great deal of what is about to happen.
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Without giving away too much of the, what i consider to be very evident, plot, I'll just say that "Stick" is the nickname of Pryce Cahill, an ex-professional golfer who now works as a coach and golf club salesman and his professional days are really behind him because one day he just lost the edge and could no longer compete.
He is a bit down in the dumps but still keeps a happy attitude even though he has a ton of financial problems. He is really quick with the words and has a sort of con-artist way about him that works on some people, but not on others. If that seems like a spoiler, well sorry! But all of this becomes rather evident in the first 10 minutes of the first episode.
One day while giving a lesson at a golf course he overhears (yes, hears) someone hitting the crack out of some balls over on the driving range. Stick approaches he sees that it is a young teen that is doing this and starts to try to talk to him.
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This is where he meets "Santi", a teenager who doesn't want to be good at golf but just is. As someone who tried to play golf for a while and realized how damn difficult it is this idea that there are some people out there that are just immediately good as hell at the game annoys me.
The parallels to Happy Gilmore start at this point. Santi is too cool to be interested in playing golf even though he is being told by a pro that he has what it takes to make big money. He claims to not really like golf but here he is at the golf course on his own volition, hitting golf balls. yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense but I suppose if his grandma was getting kicked out of her house for not paying taxes that would be too similar to Gilmore.
Anyway, it takes a while and a bit of convincing but Stick is able to convice Santi to at least try to get involved in golf and then sets out to training him using simulation equipment and also by playing on courses. Stick understand how the process works and how to get him on the pro tour and I would imagine that this is exactly where the show is heading.
I've yet to see if Santi can putt but I hope so... because if they use that aspect of it I am going to have to go ahead and say that they are directly lifting the material from Happy Gilmore.
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Owen Wilson is the perfect person for this role not just because he is a versatile actor with the right chops to nail both comedy and drama but also because he is old and slim enough to be a believable washed up golfer, and he is also young enough to be believable as someone who thinks there is a way back in for him.
This is a nice mix of comedy and drama, but I would say that it is 80% drama and 20% comedy. That appeals to me if I am in the right mood. There is enough action to keep you interested and one thing I will say is that so far anyway, the writing is mostly pretty good. They kind of drop hints about some things that are likely going to happen in the future of the show, but they don't tell too much. I think it is pretty obvious where this is going though. The kid is going to do really well but start to explode much like "Stick" did during his pro days, and it will be specifically because Stick went through this emotional problem as far as the game is concerned that he will be able to talk this kid down.
Then Stick will become his own therapist and realize that he too has got the gift back and then maybe have to make the decision about whether to continue to coach the kid, or to go at his own fame and fortune.
He will also find some sort of a love story in there and if you've watched a bit of this already you know right away with whom he is going to direct that attention. It's telegraphed in a rather sloppy way.
Should I watch it?
I think that most people will get some sort of enjoyment out of this one even if they don't know what the heck Happy Gilmore is. Actually, scratch that, you will be better off if you don't know what Happy Gilmore's story is because you won't make the connections that I did during the early episodes of this.
This isn't a fantastic show, but in the end it is easy watching that has a few laughs built in as well. At its heart it isn't really a true comedy, nor is it a true drama, it's kind of just a nice mix of both.
Will it be overall good? Honestly, I don't think so, but for the time being there are worse things to watch out there and Apple is kind of leading the charge on perfectly decent television at the moment. This is an example of exactly that.
