BLC's founder John Landsberg began his career as a sportswriter at The Lorain (OH) Journal and later moved to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. In July 2005, he began writing a monthly sports column for Kansas City Sports and Fitness.
MY PERSONAL TOP FIVE GOLF MOVIES OF ALL TIME By John Landsberg, KC Sports & Fitness June 2010 Golf is a game that generally does not lend itself very well to movie-making.Maybe it is not fast-paced enough for the big screen.Maybe it is because most golfers are pretty boring people to the average movie-watcher. In a way, that is too bad because based on demographics a good golf movie dealing with the sport should be very popular worldwide since people in virtually every country in the world play the game.That’s unlike football, baseball, hockey, etc., that are often popular in certain countries. There might not be a lot of golf movies ever made, but there are at least five that you definitely should not miss. Here are my picks for the Top Five all-time greatest golf movies ever made: To me, the Number One movie is far ahead of the pack. Sure, in many ways it is not a “pure” movie about the actual game of golf, but in my opinion the greatest golf movie ever made has to be Harold Ramis’ legendary “Caddyshack.” Can you believe Caddyshack is 30 years-old?And I dare you not to laugh at the slapstick idiocy that goes on from Bill Murray to Rodney Dangerfield to Chevy Chase to Ted Knight and the other cast of characters. If you have ever caddied at a golf course--or even been around a country club in your life---you will pretty much see all those whacky characters.In fact, every time I see the scene where Rodney Dangerfield’s golf bag has a radio, beer tap and all kinds of assorted gadgets, I get misty thinking of my late father and how it felt caddying for him with a bag I swear weighed 200 lbs. Caddyshack has all the elements of a great golf movie. A snooty country club called “Bushwood” where there is an obvious line between the “haves” and the “have nots.” We get to see both classes of people interact and it is hilarious. Sure the scene with the Baby Ruth bar floating in the pool (Actually, Baby Ruth bars don’t float in real life. Try it next time you are at the pool.) is a tad juvenile, but it was those kind of silly jokes that make the movie a winner in my book. How could you not love this unscripted dialog from Bill Murray with groundskeeper Carl Spackler whacking flowers:"Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!" Number Two on my list is the 2000 movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”Although it did not perform very well at the box office, it should have.With a superb cast of Matt Damon, Will Smith, Charlize Theron andJack Lemon, it was a wonderful tale about the early years of golf as narrated by Lemon.Best of all, Matt Damon actually looked like a golfer. Third on my list was “Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius.”Okay, I admit that I love Jim Caviezel in just about any movie, but in this 2004 film he really seemed to give a unique personality to Jones, who was the sport’s first great superstar. Caviezel’s swing was so fluid that I think he looked even better than Damon in “Bagger Vance.” In a solid fourth place is “The Greatest Game Ever Played” based on the true story of the 1913 U.S. Open.In the movie 20-year-old Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) defeats his his idol, 1900 U.S. Open champion, Englishman, Harry Vardon. My personal fifth spot goes to the amazing performance of Kevin Costner in the 1996 classic “Tin Cup” as Rory “Tin Cup” McAvoy.He’s one of millions of golf bums in the world who was given a chance to perform on the big stage.While I found his girlfriend Rene Russo irritating as his girlfriend, I really thought Don Johnson was the idea stereotype of a pro golfer. There aren’t a whole lot of excellent golf movies, but I guarantee you cannot go wrong with anyone of these five.
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