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Golf looked, sounded and felt very different when Happy Gilmore premiered in February of 1996, six months before Tiger Woods would say “Hello, world.” Reigning major champions included names like Crenshaw and Pavin. Current world #1 Scottie Scheffler was not yet born.
Adam Sandler's original tale of a volatile but wildly gifted golfer relentlessly poked fun at the game's stuffiness with everything from Happy’s running-start swing to his iconic brawl with the late Bob Barker to the climactic scene where a fallen TV stand becomes a mini-golf-like obstacle at pro golf's season-ending event. Some 29 years later, that aspect of the movie holds up well, especially at a time where golf has added millions of casual participants and loosened its collar, for better (greater overall inclusiveness) and worse (more on-course fights). What's more, Happy Gilmore remains one of the '90s' most quotable comedies.
Released on July 25 and streaming on Netflix, Sandler's sequel dives back into Happy-land with mostly positive results. While telling a fun new story with the familiar sense of irreverence, Happy Gilmore 2 attempts to go bigger than the original in every way, from its narrative ambitions to its near-two-hour run time to a list of cameo appearances - comprising actors, other celebrities and professional golfers - that is as large as I have seen in any movie. Not every swing makes solid contact, but there are plenty of laughs and Hey! I know that person! moments to propel the audience from the first tee to the final green.
Happy Gilmore 2 discovers Sandler's titular character, now 58 years old, in the present. A series of unfortunate life events have left him broke, drunk and looking after five mostly-grown kids: four endearing meathead sons and a saintly daughter (played by Sandler's own daughter, Sunny) whose considerable ballet talent and ambitions ultimately drive her father back into golf after a long absence. Happy, anguished over where his life has recently led, needs some prodding to ultimately get back up and running, which is where a cast of oddball buddies comes in. One of them is John Daly, playing an almost disturbingly exaggerated version of himself; he's living in Happy's garage and drunkenly encourages Happy to pick up his golf clubs again in between squirts of hand sanitizer, which ends up not on his hands but in his mouth.
As Happy tries to get his golf game back on track, he is courted by energy drink entrepreneur Frank Manatee (the always entertaining Benny Safdie, equal parts sleazy and corny), who has started a shady but popular rival tour. The new league, "Maxi Golf," seeks to bring the sport into the modern age. Sound familiar? Chaos ultimately ensues when Happy and four real-life pros take on five of Maxi's headliners in a climactic battle for golf's soul, with Verne Lundquist returning to the commentary box.
The gauntlet of cameos that viewers run along the way provides plenty of opportunity for references to the original movie and to golf's current PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf detente - some hilarious, some bewildering. At one point, LIV team leader Bubba Watson shows up and remarks on the disruption Maxi Golf is causing in the game, delivering his line in a way that makes one wonder how much he grasps its irony, especially with his Range Goats shirt logo looming in the frame.
Nearly 30 years' worth of advancements in film quality, special effects and Sandler's own fame enable Happy Gilmore 2 to dial up the spectacle at practically every opportunity. While this often works in service of the film's many funny moments, the maximalism of it all muddies things occasionally. But while shaving 15 or so minutes off its run time would have probably yielded a crisper finished product, it would have come at the expense of a bunch of cameos that, in the aggregate, help make quite an impressive statement about just how much progress golf continues to make in becoming part of wider pop culture.
In Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler brawled with Bob Barker in a bunker. In Happy Gilmore 2, Margaret Qualley dances exuberantly in celebration after hitting a solid fairway bunker shot. Golf has never been so cool, you guys.
