*Since I'm not-so-subtly threatening legal action against (presumably) James Cameron, I should probably cover my own bases and mention that this little corner of the blog is a tribute to a thread originating from the frequently eccentric but always stellar Red Sox blog "Educated Cheese."
That messy legal business dispensed with in a gentlemanly manner befitting of the profession, it has become clear to me in my first year of the game that golf doesn't get nearly the same level of respect throughout Hollywood that other sports enjoy. Baseball films are practically a canon into themselves, boxing has the Italian Stallion *and* the Raging Bull, you can pluck at your gridiron heartstrings with Rudy *or* Brian's song, and even basketball shows range (pun INTENDED) with White Men Can't Jump and Hoosiers bounding a neat little spectrum of hilarity and homage. Yet golf has somehow been relegated to class clown status when it comes to the movie industry. For the love of God, CNN actually lists "Who's Your Caddy" (starring Big Boi, and with a current 1.7 out of 10 star rating on IMDB) as the 10th best golf movie OF ALL TIME. In case that's having trouble sinking in, here's the plot synopsis: When a rap mogul from Atlanta tries to join a conservative country club in the Carolinas he runs into fierce opposition from the board President- but it's nothing that he and his entourage can't handle. Really? This leads off your top ten, CNN? Liberal media indeed....
Please don't misunderstand me; Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore serve proudly as not only works of art, but national treasures. Peel back the layer for just a bit more substance, however, and we're left with Tin Cup and Bagger Vance - two flicks barely surpassing The Notebook in masculinity and falling just short of the same in the cheap, easy sappiness category. To be blunt, golf needs less "movie" and more "film" in its movies: symbolism, allegory, depth, foreign language subtitles - the blatant Oscar-pandering elements that give a genre street cred outside of the comedy realm. So, without further delay, I humbly submit the script treatments for some sure-fire Oscar buzzworthy movies rooted firmly in the game of golf. Pay attention Hollywood.
I Am Bagger:
(credit to Jon of the Cheese for inspiration on this one)
A powerful "symbio-sequel" (term I've developed - and trademarked - to indicate one film as a sequel to two previously unrelated films) in which Will Smith reprises his roles as both Robert Neville ("Legend") and Bagger Vance, bringing "Bagger Legend" to life on the silverscreen as an ethereal golfer-scientist trying to restore civility and order to a zombiepocalypse world. Set 20 years after the original I Am Legend, the zombies (with less and less true humans to terrorize and eat over the decades) have developed a rudimentary culture gleaned entirely from Jack Nicklaus's "Golf My Way," which they regard as their bible. Not unexpectedly, zombie-conflicts, are as a result of this faith in "Golf My Way," settled via displays of golf skill. Zombie-chieftans and clan leaders find their power in peril not at the hands of violent wars or traditional regicide, but publicly proclaimed golf challenges, to which they must respond, or lose the faith of their zombie-followers. (Sidenote: obviously smaller matters like water rights and such are settled by putting contests or displays of flop shot proficiency, while full power-grabs require 18 holes to the death.) The film culminates in a dramatic crescendo, with Will Smith challenging the head zombie to a four-banger stroke match not only for power over the zombie-nation, but the release of Charlize Theron as well.
Goodwill Putting
A creative reinterpretation of Goodwill Hunting, Goodwill Putting forces the audience to reconcile its understandings of genius and putting and – more importantly – prompts an indictment of the conjoined space so frequently shared by the two in the public consciousness. Bradley Cooper plays the part of Will, a precocious South Boston lad whose stepfather beat him silly with a Scottty Cameron putter, while Vince Vaughn (a la Jim Carey in The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) gives the audience a glimpse of his serious side as Sean O’MaGuire, a has been Irish putting instructor with nothing to lose and a few nickel's worth of nurturing to give to a young man with an uncanny ability to read greens.
For your consideration – a scene:
Chuckie: Are we gonna have a problem here?
Clark: No, no, no, no! There's no problem here. I was just hoping you might give me some insight into the evolution of the forward press while putting on slick, bent grass greens. My contention is that prior to advanced drainage systems you see today, the greenskeeping modalities, especially in the southern courses, could be most aptly described as architecturally tiered.
Will: Of course that's your contention. You're a first-year Q-School hopeful; you just got finished reading some short game guru, Dave Pelz probably. You're gonna be convinced of that 'till next month when you get to Stan Utley. Then you're going to be talking about how the island greens of Florida and Alabama were undulating and rolling way back in 1988. That's gonna last until next year; then you're gonna be in here regurgitating Dr. Bob Winters, talkin' about, you know, the pre –milled sweetspot utopia and the alignment-forming effects of the Odyssey White Hot mallet.
Clark: Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because Winters drastically underestimates the impact of pre -milled...
Will: "Winters drastically underestimates the impact of pre-milled putters faces upon an arced stroke, especially a pronounced in-to-out stroke"? You got that from the Putt Doctor’s "The Putting Prescription," page 98, right? Yeah, I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you, is that your thing, you come onto a practice green, read some obscure passage and then pretend - you pawn it off as your own, as your own idea just to impress some cart girls, embarrass my caddy?
And....SCENE.
The Swingshank Redemption
A man is sent to prison after a nasty case of the shanks causes him to drive a Titleist IV into his wife's forehead - killing her instantly - while she is accompanying him on a round of golf so that they might "spend more time together." Sent to prison for involuntary manslaughter, our protagonist (played by Jeff Bridges...cha-ching Oscar) tries to serve his time nobly, fading into the background of prison life. All of this changes, however, when the Warden, a 22 handicap slated to play in a foursome with the governor, learns of our hero's golf abilities. Holding his very freedom over our hero's head, the warden forces Bridges to provide him with golf lessons. In the course of providing lessons, Bridges finds his swing again, rids himself of the shanks and begins the process of taking deftly crafted divots out of the ground - appearing to take practice swings though all the while using his pitching wedge to tunnel out of prison. When he finally achieves his freedom, he swears off the playing of golf, instead living out his days as a range ball shagger in southern Arizona.
Mickelson's List
It's WWII Germany, and Herr Mickelson is a struggling golf instructor. In a last ditch effort to drum up business during a time of social upheaval, Herr Mickelson sets about extending his course from a 5,700 yard yawner into a 7,950 yard championship layout. Quickly discovering that tacking on this sort of yardage takes some serious labor, Herr Mickelson enlists the assistance of ragtag bunch of Polish Jews. Initially intended to work the week and then be shipped out, Herr Mickelson finds himself touched by their human spirit and concocts a series of *zany* schemes in order to extend their now-unneeded presence. The film culminates with Herr Mickelson performing 1,000 consecutive flop shots for the Fuhr, sufficiently distracting him during D-Day and effectively ending World War II.
