Skip Bayless can’t stress enough how offended he was by Happy Gilmore 2.
Awful Announcing’s review of the light-hearted Adam Sandler project highlighted how the highly anticipated sequel delivered exactly what it was supposed to. It was a fun, irreverent take on golf that brought much-needed levity to the sport, doing so without tarnishing the legacy of the original.
The movie garnered 46.7 million views on Netflix during its debut weekend, making it the streamer’s most-watched film launch to date. But that wasn’t enough to save us from Bayless’ nearly 12-minute diatribe, in which he critiqued the film as if Sandler were trying to reimagine Caddyshack.
“I was offended by the original, too,” Bayless offered on his eponymous podcast.
Bayless is entitled to his opinion, of course. Not everyone loved the movie. But his reasons for not loving it are more deeply entrenched in the fact that he views it much like Kyle Larson views Talladega Nights.
The difference is that Bayless isn’t a professional golfer, so his opinion deeply contrasts with how warmly the golf community embraced the movie. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and Will Zalatoris not only participated in the film but also did so with humor and self-awareness, portraying the sport in a fresh and entertaining light.
But that’s not the kind of spotlight Bayless, who fancies himself as the gatekeeper of what makes a movie funny, was searching for.
“I just do not get the appeal of this character that Adam created, but plays. This character is anything but Happy. And I don’t get this sort of scathing attack on a game I so deeply love and honor and respect,” he said. “I mean, Caddyshack, my favorite golf movie, is 18 times funnier than Happy Gilmore 1 and 2 combined. But Caddyshack laughs with golf. Happy Gilmore laughs at golf. And at the rotten core of 1 and 2 is Adam Sandler’s character, this sour, foul, sociopath, who is always a hair-trigger away from committing felony assault on anyone who crosses his path; crosses him. That’s funny? Not to me.
“Happy Gilmore has four psycho hooligans for sons, all highly capable of stabbing each other in the eye with a fork at the dinner table. And that’s funny? I’m sorry, not to me. And living in their garage is John Daly, pretty much playing himself as a broken-down alcoholic. That’s just not funny to me. I’m sorry. Not funny. I guess this is the only way to get the Dumb and Dumber crowd to watch a ‘golf’ movie.”
Unlike the rest of us, Bayless doesn’t see Happy Gilmore 2 as the harmless fun it’s meant to be. Instead, he came away personally offended that the movie franchise would dare to take golf lightly.
“Happy Gilmore makes a mockery of golf,” Bayless said. “Now, you can argue that’s what LIV and the TGL are doing right here, right now, but the PGA Tour still takes golf seriously. The Major championships take golf seriously. The PGA Tour plays golf the right way and respects the game in which competitors actually call penalties on themselves and do so regularly. And then we have Happy Gilmore getting that running start to hit his tee shots. Nobody does that. Not in pro golf.”
For the love of God and all that is humane, that’s the whole point! It’s not supposed to be serious. He’s a failed hockey player playing golf. He putts with a hockey stick. It’s funny!
“I guess the Happy Gilmore movies are aimed at people that have never played golf and never, ever will play golf,” he added. “That’s fine. But here’s what really turned my stomach. True legends of the game of golf, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, actually sold out and stooped to participate in this blasphemous ridiculing of golf. They participated by delivering these lame jokes they were given that just fell flat to me. I don’t know. I don’t get it.
“There’s so many throwaway lines. It felt like the script was written in about two days. But, hey, if you offer somebody enough money and enough exposure, they’ll do just about anything. Right, Jack? Right, Lee? They’ll do just about anything, regardless of how bad it makes the game that has been so good to them, look.”
Is Bayless allowed to see Happy Gilmore as a betrayal of golf’s dignity? Sure, that’s his prerogative. But maybe that’s exactly why the movie resonates with a wider audience and the legends who don’t mind having a little fun.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.