Now, allow me to start off by saying that I am in no way trashing the movie Happy Gilmore. I consider it Adam Sandler’s best movie (albeit, slim pickings from the ‘good’ category of his movies) and have seen it more times than I can count. In fact, I have seen it so many times, that although I haven’t seen it in a number of months, I am using my memory solely in conjuring up all the references made in this article, quoted lines included. I would even go so far to say that Happy Gilmore would make it into my Top 20 favorite movies from the 90’s.
That being said, it also happens to be the most laughably inaccurate sports movie I’ve ever seen.
Let me allay the immediate argument you as a reader might have. I am fully aware that the movie is a comedy of Adam Sandler stature—which means that things should not be taken seriously. We’re talking about the same fellow that, in the same period of time that this movie was made, starred in a movie involving a mentally slow Football player and penned a song where he just listed Jews. (Wow, I tried my hardest to make that last sentence not sound offensive and still failed—my apologies.)
Still, the idea is this: While the movie follows a situation that is a bit absurd, it still tries to follow a sense of realism. Even in a goofy comedy, people are familiar with the sport of golf, and for them to relate, the movie’s take on the sport itself has to come close to the actual game. I mean, if you’re going to make a movie about someone who doesn’t belong in the world of golf play golf, you need to follow by the rules of golf as much as you can.
I completely understand the writers taking certain liberties with the game—they might nudge a rule a little bit from what it really is to fit a situation in order to get a good joke. However, people are going to think of the movie in a different light if the rules are radically different, to the point where the sport being portrayed isn’t even golf anymore. In addition, for the plot to make any sense (such as it is), they would also need to portray the characters—really, the whole golf universe—in a recognizable light. The problem seemed to be that the writers of the movie assumed that most people had never actually watched golf before, and were only familiar enough with the game in what was shown for 30 seconds on ESPN or channel surfing on a Sunday afternoon. (Sadly, for the most part, they were right.)
From conversations with friends and others, they readily pick up on ‘little things’ that the movie got wrong. But really, when one starts picking apart and examining the movie, the whole movie is on spurious ground. I spent about 30 minutes jotting down just the immediate things that came to mind, and came up with enough points for this article to begin. I’m sure there’s even more than what’s listed, but I feel that this argument should be sufficient. I debated about whether to do this article chronologically or topically. I finally decided that either way would work, but to make a decent argument, I need to stay on task, so I broke down all the points into three main areas. The obvious point people first think of is the goofy shot, and I have plenty to say about that, but I’m saving it for last for that very reason. Instead, point one is…
The Rules
If you’ve never actually played golf before, you might easily take everything said at face value in the movie. It’s kind of the same as any other sport—if you’re only a casual watcher of football, you might know the goal (run the ball into the end zone). You might know some of the rules (11 men on the field). But unless you are an avid fan, you won’t know every rule about the game. (For instance, of those 11 offensive players, 7 have to be on the line when the ball is hiked.) Golf is the same way.
If you’ve never actually played golf before, you might easily take everything said at face value in the movie. It’s kind of the same as any other sport—if you’re only a casual watcher of football, you might know the goal (run the ball into the end zone). You might know some of the rules (11 men on the field). But unless you are an avid fan, you won’t know every rule about the game. (For instance, of those 11 offensive players, 7 have to be on the line when the ball is hiked.) Golf is the same way.
Do you know how many rules there are to golf? A lot. A few years ago, just because I felt like it, I downloaded and printed out the current rules to golf in .pdf format, small font. I recently threw it away in some Spring Cleaning, but if you were to download it, it would be quite thick. It amounted to about 140 pages, small font, no pictures or diagrams. That’s a lot of room for rules.
Unlike most sports which have a list of common, universal standard rules and an appendix of situational rules, the entire golf rulebook is a list of situational occurrences, separated into 25 chapters. I really don’t fault the writers for not wanting to read this thing through. But at least they could have, I dunno, called up a mediocre pro golfer and just had them proofread the script or something. As I stated in the introduction, I only spent a short period of time brainstorming the broken rules I could think of in the movie. I’m sure there’s more than listed, but here’s just a list of the more obvious ones.
Club Regulations. Even if you have never driven by a golf course in your life, the first thing you probably could come up with was that putter Happy uses in the final tournament—the modified one Chubbs gives him. The one shaped like a hockey stick. And yes, you guessed it, it’s not legit.
One of the biggest rules in the rule book is that the things you can use to play golf in the actual Professional Golf world have to be approved. Obviously, this mutated monstrosity of a putter would not fly. But let’s say that it was kosher with the USGA. If you look at it, you can tell that it would actually severely decrease your putting accuracy. First and foremost, it’s thin as a piece of sheet metal. Have you ever tried to hit something ala golf with a piece of sheet metal? Probably didn’t go very far. Most putters are thick to provide a solid hitting motion. In addition, if it really was like a hockey stick, the ‘putting surface’ of it would be slightly curved. Which, as you would guess, make it insanely hard to hit straight on a putting green. Third, the angle that the head is on the club is vastly different than the angle on a traditional putter. Everything said about the putter, you probably would have a better chance knocking out Manny Pacquiao in a ring than sinking a putt with that thing.
There’s another issue with Happy’s clubs, though. He uses his grandfather’s old clubs when he shows up at the qualifying tournament. It’s apparent he still has the same clubs when he starts the tour. I’m going to wager these ‘old clubs’ his grandfather used don’t fit in with those golf standard regulations. The rules change every so often concerning what is allowed and what isn’t allowed with club shapes and whatnot. About two years ago, as an example, about one-third of all the wedges were disallowed because of the deep grooves on the backs of the heads. This is why you don’t see other professionals today carrying around ‘their grandfathers’ clubs when they play golf. Truth of the matter, I’m surprised the stupid things don’t break when Happy clobbers the ball with them.
Wardrobe. Happy never looks like a professional golfer. What most people don’t realize is that there are certain rules governing what golfers can and can’t wear. There’s a very good reason everyone you see on TV playing golf wears khakis and collared shirts. This is actually more egregious than you might think at first, as the rules regulating what is worn is not a USGA or PGA rule—it’s one that the golf courses themselves enforce. Which means that even if you weren’t a professional, but just some Joe wanting to play a round on a professional-quality course, you too would have to wear that. Happy’s wardrobe of tattered flannel jackets and blue jeans would have him escorted from the snack bar long before he ever set foot on the course.
Wildlife. Speaking of rules given by the local courses, the escapade where Happy retrieves his ball and decapitates a crocodile (thankfully, off-screen) would probably have him barred from ever playing that course again. A number of golf courses actually are built adjoining to wildlife habitats and are very strict about interaction with them. Players who play professionally are bound by the local course rules just as much as the USGA rules. I’m quite sure that removing the head of an animal residing on a golf course would not be looked kindly upon by, well, just about anyone. (All of this ignoring the fact that the rules prohibit players from jumping into the water to retrieve a ball.)
Obstructions. There’s a fairly big plot point in the movie concerning the cover-all rule of golf: “Play it where it lies.” This is mostly true. However, when I mentioned above that the rule book of golf is chocked full of ‘situational rules’, it is because there are so many possible situations that could come up that the judges have to be prepared for them. There are literally multiple chapters concerning what is called ‘Obstructions’ that give exceptions to the ‘play it anywhere’ rule.
In the movie, Happy’s rival Shooter McGavin hits the ball into the crowd (which happens multiple times in a tournament in real life). Said ball strikes Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me on the foot. Shooter asks if he can “get a drop”. The judge simply says, “The rules say, ‘play it as it lies’.” Technically, this kind of thing has happened a few times before (really) and, no, the player did not have to hit it off of the person—they got ‘a drop’. This is supported by the rules, so the judge actually fell down on the job. Chapter 21 mentions that a player can “replace” the ball if it is resting or strikes a “movable obstruction”. I would consider a person’s foot quite movable. Of course, though, if the movie allowed that, we wouldn’t get that wonderful physical threat to a golfer (which, I’m sure, would have gotten Richard Kiel thrown off the course).
What about when the tables are turned? At the end of the movie, a radio tower falls smack in the middle of the final green, blocking Happy’s putt to the hole. Shooter appears and reminds Happy he has to play it like it lies, just like he had to do. (At which point, one could make an argument that this was a different circumstance altogether—just because Shooter had to do something didn’t force Happy to do something completely unrelated.) The judge affirms Shooter’s statement. Now, there couldn’t possibly be a rule that governed this bizarre circumstance, could there? Indeed there is. Chapter 25, really an appendix chapter, deals with “Abnormal Golf Conditions”, which a radio tower laying in the middle of the green would qualify for. In fact, it specifically mentions a situation where something would impede the putting line between the ball and the hole on a green. In such a case, the golfer would get a free ‘relief’, moving the ball within one club length of the closest point where the obstruction is no longer an obstruction. Yes, they really did think of everything, didn’t they?
We could nitpick rules, but we should move on.
The Villain
Shooter McGavin is a professional golfer. He’s a crowd favorite before Happy shows up. However, he’s pompous. He’s impulsive. He’s a jerk. He’s low and underhanded in many cases. And he’s usually absolutely right.
The worst thing a movie can do is portray a villain as a bad guy, giving him mean qualities, developing him like a jerk, making him an overall unlikeable character—but forgetting to make him wrong. On the surface, the writers try to make him out to be a bully who tries to strong arm Happy out of playing golf, attacking his credibility and whatnot. However, when you look at what he says, without much exception, he’s usually on the ball. The main problem in this case is that when Shooter says something, the audience is supposed to assume that he’s manipulative or just plain wrong, whether ethically or actually (and sadly, the movie tries to make that happen). But, objectively, the opposite is true. Some examples:
Scene: Happy is at a bar after his first tournament as a professional. Shooter approaches him and makes small talk, saying, “You sure crush the ball at the tee. You'd be great in one of those Long Drive competitions.”
Happy is only playing golf (originally) to raise $275,000 to get back his Grandmother’s house from the IRS. In fact, immediately after telling Shooter off, Happy says this—“I was only in this for one reason: Money.” However, if Happy would have looked into it, he would have gotten his $275,000 quicker doing precisely what Shooter recommended.
Let’s compare. Right now, the average taking by a pro golfer in Happy’s placement range is about $25,000. This means Happy would, if he played every weekend and placed high enough each week, take about 11 weeks to get the money (which, honestly, does fit in with the time frame of the movie). However, the winner of a Long Drive tournament took home (by 90’s standards) somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000 per venue. Now, I’m not sure how many Long Drive tournaments are held—probably not every week. Still, Happy would only have to win 3 to get the money (and given that the movie mentioned his 400-yard driving ability, probably would put him in the top running at each event). By all intents and purposes, Happy would have gotten the house back before the auction if he would have actually taken Shooter’s advice.
(*There is absolutely no reason why Shooter should have been in this office; he wasn’t involved with the altercation at all. This was a disciplinary meeting with the head of the PGA tour. The only reason he’s in the room apparently is so that he can learn about Happy’s grandmother—purely a scripted reason.)
Now, this might not seem so strange to someone watching a mainstream sport such as football, where players can get away with murder. (No pun intended, because there was no pun involved.) Even jail time doesn’t stop some players from playing. It would seem that punching the host of The Price Is Right would only require a suspending—if this were football. However, this being the game of golf and surrounded by centuries of decorum, Shooter is probably closer to being right than the PGA head. After all, Happy should be indicted on assault charges after his fist fight; at one point, he brandishes a club, which makes the charge even worse. Ratings shouldn’t really come into play. (Not to mention some of the sponsors would probably want to pull their agreements, for fear of being associated with an organization that tolerates beating up old people.) The reason Shooter is more right than not leads to his next line:
Scene: Same.
Shooter replies, “He’s destroying golf, Doug.”
And again, he’s right.
The underlying plot of the movie is that Happy is making golf more likable for the common man. Throughout the movie, his fan base looks like the cheering crowd for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They bring beach balls and throw them while blowing on kazoos—all while Shooter is trying to putt. This is played for laughs. If you were Shooter and trying to concentrate, however, I’m sure you’d agree a bouncing beach ball hitting you in the back of the head would be a little irritating. In all honesty, according to those ‘local golf course rules’, everyone involved would be escorted off the course immediately.
The examples of this are countless throughout the movie. Shooter mentions fans mooning him and… well, copulating right on the course. These are actions illegal in Wal-Mart, let alone a golf course. The fact that the movie is in favor of individuals making a ruckus and being Rednecky during a sport that requires concentration is laughable at best. They make Shooter seem ‘elitist’ for denying this cultural change, but in reality, the new culture is destroying centuries of established culture. And concerning Shooter himself, it’s not so much elitism as it is justified rage…
Scene: Happy’s love interest who works in PR tells Happy not to worry about Shooter. “He just feels threatened. He feels like you’re going to steal his thunder.”
For one, Happy is stealing his thunder, but it isn’t just to make Shooter look like a spoiled child. Shooter is mad in the same way you might feel if you worked for a company for 10 – 15 years and watch the CEO’s nephew get promoted above you after six months on the job.
In all, the movie portrays Shooter McGavin as the Snidely Whiplash of golf, where in reality, Happy is more like Dennis the Menace. It’s not so much that the movie is giving us a view of how golf should be, but rather just giving us someone to relate to (Gilmore) and someone to hate (McGavin). In the process, however, they forgot to make sure it made any sense. Again, these might seem like small issues. And they might just be, except that the entire plot and structure of the entire movie revolves around Happy having some incredible gift of golf, i.e. his swing.
And they just ignore the entire game of golf outside of it.
The Swing
Happy Gilmore is the story of a guy who was taught how to play hockey, but failing in that endeavor, discovered he could use his power shot to hit a golf ball “400 yards”. The ‘shot’ involves him standing about 3 good steps behind the ball, skipping foot over foot and giving a full swing, launching the ball. The concept is that with his running start, he can put more power behind it and send it further. At first, anyone who has seen the movie might state, “Sure, just because he has a cool shot doesn’t mean he’ll hit it that far.” But the problems stem much deeper than that, and really break away the whole movie. Let’s break it down piece by piece.
The first and most obvious point, which we could honestly just stop with, is this: Just because you can hit the ball far doesn’t mean that you can hit the ball straight. The whole logic of the movie falls apart with that one statement. The entire reason why he failed at hockey was because he couldn’t hit the puck in the net. A golf hole is much, much harder to hit than a hockey net.
Worse yet, hitting a golf ball straight is something even professionals can’t do every single time. (Most can’t even hit 75% of the fairways on one round off the tee.) The way to win golf isn’t how hard you can hit it, but how few attempts it takes to get the ball into the hole. This takes a combination of not just hitting the ball hard off the tee, but finesse in getting the ball onto the green when you get close. (More on this in just a second.)
When you examine Happy’s approach-to-the-ball technique, it is a physical impossibility for him to hit the ball straight. In order to hit a ball straight, a number of factors come into play, one of the more important factors is the solid placement of one’s feet on the ground. Hopping around as you hit the ball would literally send the ball 90 degrees to the left or right once it is in the air. This is because the impact of the club head to the ball puts a certain spin on it, and if the spin has any left or right degree to it, the ball will curve accordingly.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that Happy’s technique miraculously works and that he can hit the ball straight. He couldn’t always use that technique. No golfer has one type of shot that works for every situation. In one scene in the movie, Happy is shown hitting the golf ball out of a bunker, using the exact same swing. Though they don’t show it exactly, it’s sort of obvious that the bunker is right next to the green. In the next shot, they just show the ball rolling on the green. However, if he just used his super power hockey shot on the ball, it should have done one of two things: launched the ball right into the wall of the bunker and buried it, or shot it into the parking lot of the golf course some 250 yards away.
Also, on a traditional par-72, 18-hole course, there are 4 holes that are par-3. These holes are almost always less than 220 yards (even for pros). His mighty slap shot won’t come in handy there. Here’s another point—look at a map of a golf course. Just type in a browser search engine “golf course hole map”. Generally, a golf course will have at least 7 or 8 holes (if not more) that have doglegs in them. A dogleg is where the hole starts one way but then breaks at an angle at some point. Generally, a player will have to estimate how far to the dogleg and aim for that point, which could mean any number of tricks or skill shots—none of which Happy Gilmore is capable of. Take a little power out of the swing? Nope. Controlled Spin? Nuh-uh. Lay up? Not with that running start thing. Golfers develop and learn how to utilize different stances and postures to accommodate different circumstances. Just running willy-nilly at a ball can’t be effective if you want to win (which, surprisingly, Happy does in the movie).
How about the shot that he does use in the movie? Watching the trajectory of the shot, Happy uses what’s known as a ‘stinger shot’, where the ball heads in a straight line, raised, flying like it came out of a cannon until it reaches an apex, then falls. Tiger Woods made this shot popular a little over a decade ago, though it’s been used for a while. Again, this type of shot takes planning and skill to pull off. Looking at the way Happy swings the club when he contacts the ball, even if the shot went straight and even if it went 400 yards, it wouldn’t travel in that pattern. It would have considerable backspin and look parabolic (starting low, before rising quickly, travelling a little bit, then falling).
Even if we ignore all of this, to be frank and honest, a 400 yard tee shot isn’t really that horribly amazing. The idea is that Happy’s shot is so amazing that it compensates for any other part of his game; he can simply put the ball on the green from the tee. In the last 6 or 7 years, though, a lot of young upstarts have improved on the techniques of their golf forefathers. The ‘power hitters’ in today’s PGA can actually put the ball 340 or 350 yards off the tee on a straight fairway. Because of this, course owners have lengthened their courses considerably. Even if Happy could tee 400 yards, he would not be able to reach the green on the majority of the holes in any tournament. Which means he still would need to know how to use a pitching wedge, which he obviously isn’t equipped for.
Let’s face it, the writers of Happy Gilmore said, “Hey, what if we wrote a golf movie about a guy who could hit the ball really hard.” And that sufficed for the research for the entire script.*
-Zerom
