Ball State golfer Happy Gilmore: 190 mph ball. No need to act. 'I'm so much like Happy'

Indianapolis Star

24-07-2025

Happy Gilmore is, admittedly, a little goofy, pretty funny, extremely competitive and a guy who doesn't put on airs, laughing that, at the moment, he's laid up from a knee injury. No, not from playing golf but from swimming in a pond where a rock cut his knee which got infected.
Gilmore can also drive the living daylights out of a golf ball. His highest ball speed on record is 190 mph, almost as fast as the cars that whiz around Indianapolis Motor Speedway and surpassing the average ball speed on the PGA Tour with a driver, which is 174 mph.
To put it simply, the real life Happy Gilmore, a 19-year-old golfer at Ball State University, is a lot like the original Happy Gilmore -- the character with a wicked, hockey-induced golf ball speed played by Adam Sandler in the 1996 movie by the same name -- although the realGilmore never played hockey.
"I don't have to fake (it). That's pretty much who I am. My personality really just matches his personality," Gilmore, who was a standout golfer at Bloomington South, told IndyStar on Wednesday. "It's just cool I can freely be myself and, you know, I feel like it's just kind of the way he was in the movie, how I naturally am in real life."
As "Happy Gilmore 2" debuts on Netflix July 25, nearly 30 years after its original, wildly popular, box office release, Gilmore is in a bit of disbelief again at just "how big of a deal that movie is."
When Gilmore was a tiny guy just getting his start in the sport, he had no idea the movie was a big deal at all. Then he arrived at a golf tournament with his given name, Landon James Gilmore, and a random happening gave him the nickname Happy for life -- and a bit of a spotlight in the golf world.
When Gilmore committed to Ball State in 2023, the spotlight shined even brighter as the nation and the world took notice of what surely couldn't be real. A guy actually named Happy Gilmore was playing Division I golf?
Sandler retweeted Gilmore's college commitment post with the words "Go get em Happy. Pulling for you," which got 9.9 million views. Gilmore was too big of a marketing boon to pass up. NIL deals started to follow.
"I would have to think that (my name is helping with NIL). But I'd like to think it's because I'm not bad at golf," said Gilmore. "But, I mean, it's definitely helping. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't."
How to watch 'Happy Gilmore 2': Release date, Netflix price, cast cameos in Adam Sandler movie
Gilmore was 9, playing a tournament where he won a long drive contest. At the awards dinner, when his name was announced Landon Gilmore, someone yelled out "Happy."
"It was some random person and I don't know who it is to this day," Gilmore said. "But then, the next day at the tournament when it started, people were calling me Happy. And then from there, it just kept building and building and building until what it is now."
Through the years, complete strangers at the golf course have come up to Gilmore spouting out quotes from the movie. And Gilmore always has a quote or two to shoot back. He's pretty sure he's seen the movie at least 100 times.
More than once after a tee shot in a match or tournament, he's heard a scream from the distance: "Jackass." "It's always funny because I'm never expecting it," said Gilmore. "It gets me laughing every time."
Gilmore, of course, knows there is no ill intention with the name calling. That's what happens in the movie. As Sandler tees off, he is tormented by a guy who yells "You suck ya jackass."
In high school, Gilmore was one of the state's best. He was a four-time all-state player, finishing seventh in the IHSAA finals as a sophomore and eighth as a junior. He shot 70 and 79 to finish with an 11th place finish in the state finals as a senior.
In 2023, Gilmore qualified for the United States Junior Amateur Championship, shooting 66 at Delaware Country Club in the local qualifier. He was runner-up in the Indiana Golf Hoosier Junior Championship and finished fourth in an elite international field of players at the Golfweek International Junior Invitational in Orlando.
And he did it all as the star player Happy Gilmore. But then, the fanfare surrounding Gilmore's name was mostly relegated to the world of golf.
"And then, all of a sudden, when I committed, it kind of blew up everywhere," Gilmore said. "I was like, 'Oh wow, this is actually a pretty big thing.'"
Among the bigger NIL deals Gilmore signed is one with Arby's, which put out a "Birdies & Beef Collection" of golf apparel featuring Gilmore.
"As a lifetime fan of Arby's, being the face of the Birdies & Beef Collection is a dream come true,' Gilmore said after the deal was announced. 'It's a mix of the two things I love most, golf, especially during the major tournament, and an Arby's Beef N' Cheddar sandwich. Being the face of an Arby's campaign feels like a hole in one."
Can't you hear Adam Sandler saying that?
Another big deal for Gilmore came with Sunday Golf, which includes Gilmore representing the brand through social media and using their golf gear.
Looking back, Gilmore said, he never really tried all that hard to make sure people knew his name. It just grew organically through the years.
"I mean, I've always had fun with it. But I never really pushed the name," he said. "Everything that came with it has just kind of fallen in line with each other. I've never really went out of my way to try and benefit me."
Gilmore has never met Sandler or talked to him. His only contact from the movie star was when Sandler re-posted his commitment to Ball State. So, alas, there will be no cameo from the Indiana Happy Gilmore in the sequel "Happy Gilmore 2."
But, of course, Gilmore will be watching. He and his friends are putting together a watch party where Gilmore hopes to see the same Happy character of the original film, the one who is a lot like him.
"Happy, literally, is the polar opposite of what the average golfer is supposed to be," said Gilmore. "And I'm kind of from a small town. And, obviously, I'm currently laying in bed because I injured my knee swimming in a pond. That's very Happy Gilmore."
The reason Gilmore loves the movie is "it's not the typical golf classy film." As for a favorite scene or quote from the original, he goes back to the guy who would always yell "jackass" when Sandler was teeing off.
"I've heard that so many times in my life," he said.
While Happy isn't Gilmore's legal name, he's been using it solely for more than a decade. So, in his mind, he is officially Happy Gilmore.
Take other golfers like Tiger Woods, whose real name is Eldrick Tont Woods. The nickname Tiger was given to him by his father in honor of a friend, a South Vietnamese Colonel named Vuong Dang Phong, who went by Tiger.
Or Bubba Watson, who got his nickname from his father, who thought he looked like football player Bubba Smith. Watson's legal name is Gerry Lester Watson, Jr.
"I didn't realize a lot of those guys don't go by their actual first name," Gilmore said. So why not be Happy? After all, his name suits him to a tee.
"I can just be myself and it goes right along with the movie," said Gilmore. "I've always just felt like, 'You know what? This name is almost perfect.'"