The latest insolent attempt to portray golf as ‘cool’, which manifested itself as a scramble match between four PGA Tour pros and a handful of Formula 1 drivers aired on Netflix last week. Yet another opportunity to wheel out the SB2K17 gang (Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler), they played alongside Carlos Sainz of Ferrari and Lando Norris of McLaren. Tony Finau and Max Homa joined up with Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly to make up the other fourball. Earning itself a rating of 3.7/10 on IMDb, the early signs show that it might narrowly pip ‘The Emoji Movie’ (3.4) and ‘The Room’ (3.6) – two absolute powerhouses of film production – to critical acclaim. The nearly three-hour ‘special’ also saw the return of the earpiece, a revolutionary piece of tech that golf purists around the world have come to know and love…
“Justin how far do you have? … Justin. How far do you have? … Justin? Please?”
Just about making it through the first thirty minutes with my supper where it should be, it was skin-crawlingly and toe-curlingly bad. Although, aside from the occasional interruption from family members asking, ‘what is this tosh?’, I managed to keep my eyes on the chaos unfolding in front of my eyes.
The course at Wynn Golf Club, laid out by Tom Fazio in 2005 and the only of its kind on the Las Vegas Strip played host to the carnage. Buggy races, ‘Squid Game’ challenges, presenters rugby tackling protestors and don’t forget the cameo appearance from Mark Wahlberg. Awash with technical issues as the four pairings battled it out in a completely mixed-up and random format, it was extremely difficult to follow what the point of the exercise was at all. The insufferable presenters trying to find out what yardage the players had only to be completely aired was an all too frequent occurrence.
In a sequence of increasingly calamitous events, producer Aaron Champion and his team had viewers hiding behind their sofas. The first fourball commenced the chaos on the first, all teeing off at once as ‘the lights went out’, attempting to get the ball in the hole in the quickest time possible. A buggy race to the green commenced, with cameras and commentators trying with all their might to keep up with the mayhem. Without the faintest scooby of what the format was, Lando Norris dropped his ball two-foot away from the flag, tapped in, and claimed ‘victory’ for himself and partner Rickie Fowler.
Ex-NFL player (so I have been told), Marshawn Lynch, convened the players in to discuss what had just happened. Of course, none of them had the faintest, and with cigar in teeth, Lynch suggested they rock-paper-scissors to decide a winner. In what was already supposed to be a ‘tiebreaker’, this was far from a successful start.
To avoid going through the hole-by-hole action (you really don’t want me to), it might be best practice to briefly summarise the remaining two hours of coverage:
- No one seemed to understand or care about the rules and outcome.
- For prospective golfers who were tuning in to see their favourite F1 drivers take on golf, it’s likely they would have been left totally turned off by the sheer lack of any basic explanation of how anything worked or what the point was.
- Whilst the golf was actually ‘secondary’, everything else was laughably bad.
- Presenter Bert Kreischer was the definition of cringe. In the space of two hours he managed to flash his hairy chest, ignore Max Homa and tell the whole world Steve Aoki asked for his number.
- Interspersed within the coverage were some short conversations with golfers and celebrities alike. The highlight for me being Collin Morikawa solemnly reflecting on his ongoing injury whilst Justin Thomas and Carlos Sainz were tearing around the course jumping in and out of their buggy.
- Sheer silliness prevailed.
- Whilst this might have been the goal to appeal to the TikTok generation, it ultimately resulted in absolute stupidity. This was emphasised by the occasional moment where Thomas, Fowler, Finau or Homa might make a serious golfing comment to their partner, only for the next challenge to provide another dollop of ridiculousness.
- The trophy presentation just about summed it all up.
- Admittedly skimming through most of the action to this point to save myself from chronic nausea, the presentation of the trophy to winners Justin Thomas and Carlos Sainz put the cherry on top of the rotten cake. Lifting his utterly meaningless piece of silverware over his shoulder, the Spanish driver put it where it truly belonged. In perfect slow motion, The Pits trophy slipped from his grasp, crashing to the floor and breaking in two beyond repair.
With all of this being said, a potent point arises. Running concurrently with this abomination (which some have dubbed harmless fun), was the gruelling 6-round finale of the DP World Tour Q school. Fighting hammer and tongs to earn the chance to play on the big stage, some proper golf was being played. Why do people still think this is what golf needs? I can’t think of a single production akin to The Netflix Cup which hasn’t flopped.
What’s more is that the F1 drivers, good sports though they were, likely really did not want to be there. The Vegas Grand Prix itself was dubbed ‘99% show and 1% sporting event’ by championship winner, Max Verstappen. Add in a dodgy track and a pre-race grid replete with vacuous ‘celebrities’, it was a pretty grim week of sport in Sin City.
For the sake of everyone’s dinners, please stop trying to make golf ‘hip’.
