The last 12 months had a bit of everything – a career Grand Slam, Ryder Cup chaos and much more. With 2026 on the horizon, our writers look at the most memorable moments from 2025 and explain why they mattered.
Stories of 2025 No. 14: A successful sequel
The budget was attractive, the star power dazzling and the entertainment value. . . controversial.
But enough about Capital One’s Match.
The year’s true golf-themed pop culture extravaganza—one that actually drew a sizable audience—was a cinematic sequel that proudly relied on its own inanity while pulling every lever in the multi-platform marketing machine of the modern age.
Accept it. You watched “Happy Gilmore 2”.
Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably caught wind of the film, a belated sequel to the original 1996 film starring. Adam Sandler as an unlikely golfing phenom with a gutter mouth, a heart of gold, a hairy temper and a slap swing. Nearly 30 years later, the wheelchair-wearing man-child is back, loaded with extra emotional baggage and surrounded by a huge supporting cast, including Bad Bunny in place of Bob Barker, and just about every Tour pro you can name — all backed by a reported $152 million production budget.
For those keeping score at home, Netflix spent more on ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ than LIV Golf to sign Bryson DeChambeau.
To help ensure a return on its investment, the studio-turned-broadcaster shifted the noise into hyperdrive. This wasn’t so much a movie release as a multi-pronged assault on consumer culture. Subway released a special Happy Gilmore meal deal. Callaway re-released its Odyssey hockey stick. Topgolf hosted shows at locations around the country. In Times Square, the New Year’s ball was replaced by a large golf ball. This was in July, at the time of the film’s premiere. By then, if you haven’t seen Happy Gilmore 2, you’ll probably feel like you have.
That puts you in good company. During its opening weekend, the film generated 2.9 billion minute views, a Netflix record.
And what, exactly, did those viewers see? Since it’s hard to spoil anything at this point, what counts as plot is set in motion by tragedy. We’ve barely printed the game on our streaming service when Happy kills his wife with an errant golf swing. Fast forward a few decades and our traumatized hero has fallen on hard times. Penniless, out of shape and an alcoholic, he takes up golf again to pay for his daughter’s dreams of ballet school. The crazy adventures follow, along with more cameos than you could count in a thousand AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Ams, ranging from Paige Spiranac as a Dick’s Sports Goods saleswoman to Post Malone as a gonzo TV commentator. And just about anyone with a pulse and a Q rating in between.
Then there’s this: even as he tries to save his movement, Happy is asked to save golf itself, now under existential threat from a new rival circuit called Maxi Golf, funded by a bad guy named Frank Manatee. Golf fans will immediately recognize Maxi Golf as a thinly veiled stand-in for LIV, while erudite film buffs may detect a subtler layer of allegory involving marine animals – a crocodile here, a shark there. Get it? Good. This is not Godard.
The second coming of Happy Gilmore wasn’t meant to provoke heated discussion. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be read as a metaphor for our current moment. With its celebrity saturation and pacing calibrated for TikTok’s long attention span, it plays like a mirror of contemporary life. And, of course, contemporary golf – a game worthy of breaking free from traditional roles. The line between golf culture and pop culture has never been more porous. Happy Gilmore 2 gleefully embraces this truth.
As a sequel to an old movie, it has built-in nostalgia, enhanced by octogenarians like Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino. But it’s less rooted in the past than the present, which may provide a clue to what’s to come. Like golf and all other forms of entertainment, movie franchises are always looking for future audiences.
Mark your calendar for the 2055 release of Happy Gilmore 3, where the man returns as a robot to a simulated world to help Team USA win the virtual Ryder Cup.
It really doesn’t seem that far off.
