PGA Tour documentary fails on LIV Golf scrutiny but is saved by McIlroy and co
What makes a great sports documentary?
That’s the question haunting filmmakers in 2023, when just about every sport worth its salt will have at least one fly-on-the-wall show releasing on a streaming network near you.
They all share the same dream that their own version of F1’s Drive to Survive will capture the public imagination in the same way and add a few zeros to next season’s sales figures. In a world of rising costs, falling advertising prices and increasing competition for eyeballs, there is a sense of panic at every renewal for some of the old sports that have always been able to rely on established parts of the market and TV deals that have essentially been sealed.
Now the Golf is fighting for its life like everyone else.
More of golf
It’s fitting, then, that Full Swing, part of the Plan to Save Golf and available to stream on Netflix starting February 15, is also about the effort to save golf and chronicles a season in which the PGA Tour faces an existential threat exposed by the Saudis. supports LIV Golf. The Breakaway Tour provides a neat overarching storyline for the format made famous by Netflix’s sports documentaries, using each episode as an opportunity to focus on the rise and fall of two people and the cut and shove of not too much to pay attention to the journey.
This crude approach is understandable, because there’s no point preaching to converts: golf remains a niche interest and it’s up to the sport’s organizers to bring it out of the shadows and into the mainstream limelight.
But sometimes the devil is in the details, and it’s frustrating that Full Swing keeps quiet about the reasons why LIV Golf is such a disturbing presence in the game. It allows Dustin Johnson to offer the familiar “If I offered you a job with more money and less time in the office, you would take it” without offering any challenge. Brooks Koepka claims he makes sure “his grandchildren are taken care of.”
At the very least, Ian Poulter’s “fuss” over accepting an LIV offer involves taking his family on domestic flights across America in his private jet and hitting golf balls from the living room into the nearest zip code to their ranch — but we still are invited to sympathize with the financial difficulties of a man who has earned over £40m on the pitch, millions more through endorsements from it and has a full and generous PGA Tour pension.
“Do I love the Ryder Cup? Is the Pope Catholic?” He says before signing a contract it means he may never be allowed to play in the competition again.
That’s not to say villains aren’t compelling, but when presented as heroes, they leave a lot to be desired. The question arises again: what makes a great sports documentary? The answer is light and shadow, good and bad, ups and downs.
And there are highs too. Rory McIlroy is portrayed as the savior of golf, bringing together those who rejected LIV and working with the PGA to give players a bigger slice of the pie, and his FedEx Cup victory allows producers to bring the final episode of the Ending the season on a high note, with LIV-free optimism abounding.
Tony Finau, who grew up hitting golf balls from a piece of carpet onto a mattress in his parents’ garage, plays the card game Uno with his five children and his wife, who all travel with him on tour and who he admits love a distraction, however, are an important part of why he plays golf.
Talking with every ball as his rookie son tries to win the World Open in Phoenix, Sahith Theegala’s father’s enthusiasm is contagious. When an unfortunate jump to 17 sends his ball in the water and eventually misses the title play-off, Theegala Sr. tells his son, “You’re going to have your day,” before hugging the tearful 24-year-old. Viewers will have a hard time not crying with him, as they might with Joel Dahmen, the self-deprecating golf everyman who lost his mother to cancer at 17 and was “like a leaf in the wind” for five years afterwards. In his own words, he “did a bit of chemo” himself when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It’s hard not to enjoy him and his caddy Geno Bonnalie on the bad days and the good days.
And then there’s Matt Fitzpatrick, the US Open champion who controversially missed out on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award last year. I understands that the producers were willing to drop him from the show altogether after weeks of filming with his brother and friends, only for his first major in Brookline to give them no choice.
Unfortunately, Fitzpatrick’s self-assessment as “low-key” is typically spot-on. It’s amazing that he’s kept a record of every shot he’s played in tournament golf since he was a youngster – more than 7,000 of them in a box in his childhood bedroom – but there’s only limited appeal to watch him play them during the USA in a table suggests open house. His caddy Billy Foster is one of the big characters of the tour but sadly we rarely hear from him.
Drive to Survive set a dangerously high bar for these documentaries, and it’s probably unfair to judge them all on the success of a show that has benefited from ending up in the diluted television landscape of the pandemic. With that in mind, there are enough characters and storylines in Full Swing to keep people coming back. And that’s what often makes a sports documentary great: longevity.