No one knows the genre of golf comedy series better than Luke and Owen Wilson, and it might just be because it’s what the world needs right now.
A year after Owen premiered Stick on Apple TV, a show that finds the Wedding Crashers alum playing a retired PGA pro who decides to train an up-and-coming young player, Luke is entering the conversation with a Netflix series of his own, The Hawk, alongside Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and more. So, why the sudden fascination with teeing off in Hollywood? Luke has some ideas…
“It’s just a typical Hollywood thing where, for so long, it was just Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore. People who knew I played golf would say, ‘Why don’t you make a good golf movie?’” Wilson, who plays the antagonistic Golden Fisk in The Hawk, told DECIDER in a sit-down interview for Netflix‘s new series. “And you just felt like you could never get someone to fund one.’ They just thought it was, I don’t know, like an elitist sport or not like soccer or football.”
Certainly, the younger Wilson brother is referring to the proliferation of movies and TV shows following the world of soccer, baseball, and pretty much every other sport known to man — even gymnastics has had its fair share of projects over the last decade or two — and the absence of stories focused on the so-called “greatest game ever played.” And as for his brother’s show, Wilson joked that he’s “not heard of it,” but says that it all speaks to what people are looking for in TV these days.
“It just shows how, just like what you were saying, with Stick and The Hawk, you can have these family [stories], mixed with comedy, mixed with sports, and so you get people that aren’t even in the golf that really like the shows,” Wilson shared. “I know that happened with Owen’s show, that people who weren’t necessarily golf fans really enjoyed it.”
To that, Wilson’s co-star, Jimmy Tatro, chimed in and added that — in the case of their own project — it has so much to do with allowing Ferrell to do what he does best and wreak havoc.
“It’s also just such a serious, like, buttoned-up, rule-heavy formality sport that introducing a wild-card character like Lonnie Hawkins into the world just disrupts the whole thing in a way that makes for good humor,” the Theater Camp actor shared.
The new comedy comes from the mind of Ferrell and his frequent collaborators Harper Steele and Chris Henchy. The Hawk follows Ferrell’s titular character as he sets out to accomplish his seemingly impossible goal of completing a career Grand Slam in the PGA. The series picks up years after Lonnie choked on the 18th hole of the U.S. Open and is now facing off against his own son (Tatro) to try and win it all. Also along for the ride are Lonnie’s estranged wife (Shannon), his makeshift golf caddy (Fortune Feimster), and his PGA nemesis (Chris Parnell).
Can Lonnie Hawkins finally win the U.S. Open and complete his life’s dream or will he be forced to accept his fate as a washed-up (albeit hilarious) former pro in the sport? You’ll just have to watch and find out.
The Hawk is now streaming on Netflix. Stick Season 1 is streaming on Apple TV.
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