Stick, review: Owen Wilson's new golf comedy is par for the course

Telegraph

3 days ago

Given that I'm someone who watches way too much sport on TV, it's strange that when it comes to fictional sports shows, be they comedy or drama, I'm likely to give them a swerve, they so rarely get the sport bit right. So Owen Wilson 's new golf comedy Stick (Apple TV+) looked headed straight for the bunker. But, fair play, even if the series treads an unsure and sometimes shallow line between comedy and drama, what Stick gets right is the golf itself.
When Wilson's washed-up ex-pro Pryce Cahill spots skinny teen Santi (Peter Dager) whistling balls into the stratosphere at a driving range, we see what he sees: a phenom with a swing that has stardom etched into the swing of its sweet hips. Game on as Pryce takes Santi, reluctant at first, under his rusty wing.
So the sport part of this underdog story had me rooting for it. If only the plot had as firm a grip on what it was aiming for as Santi loading up his three wood. Because when it comes to the sporting underdog schtick, Stick sticks to the middle of the fairway, playing it safe when a few tin cup chances would have lifted it out of the pack.
As Pryce takes Santi out on the road in a bid to turn him into a top pro, our cards are marked pretty quickly. Personal tragedy, the death of a young son, has sent Pryce on a downward spiral, wrecking his career and his marriage. Santi is his lifeline, a son substitute who also reminds him of the player he used to be.
The loafer charm of Wilson makes a good match with Dager's finely tuned turn as a cocky teen whose bravado masks insecurity. But we only scratch the surface of their relationship as Stick swings uneasily between comedy and drama, not really teeing off convincingly as either.
'Yeah, at one point in my life, I was somebody,' notes Pryce to Santi as the pair head out on the biggest round of the young prodigy's career, only to meet fans who recall the old pro in his pomp. It's a line that hints at something deeper hidden beneath Pryce's genial surface, but it's left to drift off into the rough.
Still, if you go with Stick's laid back flow, there's plenty to enjoy. While the plot twists aren't so much signposted as written in capital letters on the scoreboard by the 18th green, there's something comforting in knowing exactly where the action is heading.
Will Pryce get his life back on track? Will Santi's mum hit it off with Pryce's old caddy Mitts? Will Santi's domineering dad turn up and wreck his chances like he did in the juniors? Will we be teed up for a second series in which Pryce finally gets his head back in the game? You know the answers already.
It's all perfectly watchable but, like following an actual golf tournament on TV, if you nod off during the second round only waking up for the closing holes, you won't have missed too much. As sports comedies go, Stick is pretty much par for the course.