Is ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ Really About LIV vs. PGA Tour?

Happy Gilmore 2’s main plotline may sound familiar to many golf fans: A rival league threatens the existence of the long-standing traditional tour.

In the new sequel to Adam Sandler’s 1996 hit comedy, the upstart Maxi Golf circuit takes on the Pro Golf Tour. The movie’s creators have said the storyline is not supposed to mimic the ongoing battle in professional golf, but it’s noteworthy that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, whose top players worked together as main characters in the film, weren’t heavily consulted about the script.

“We weren’t out there looking for approval from the leagues or not,” Chad Mumm, a co-producer of the movie, tells Front Office Sports.

The PGA Tour’s Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, and LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka all team up with Happy Gilmore to battle against Maxi Golf’s best players in the fictional universe. 

Mumm, who is the executive producer of Netflix’s golf docuseries Full Swing and who Sandler brought on to facilitate golfer cameos, said he received “no pushback” from players’ representatives, who were the main points of contact throughout filming, not their respective tours. Mumm’s company, Pro Shop Holdings, has funding from the PGA Tour.

“They were excited,” he said. “Nobody really ever raised any sort of concerns about the plot points, because it’s ridiculous. I mean, there’s an ice hole and a fire hole. It’s all just kind of over the top.”

Fairways and Greens

Mumm said he would have addressed any potential concerns, had they arisen. Objectively, if either side had a reason to be upset with the film, it would be LIV, since two of their players (whose contracts expire in 2026) worked against the upstart tour that many in reviews and on social media have compared to LIV.

“Ultimately, I think LIV obviously followed the lead of Bryson and Brooks,” Mumm said.

Both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf declined to comment when asked about the movie’s plot. However, both leagues have heavily promoted their players’ appearances in the film, which extend beyond the four aforementioned stars. 

“It wasn’t about the PGA or it wasn’t about LIV,” Mumm said.
”It was about the Pro Golf Tour versus the Maxi tour. And I think that in Sandler’s mind, it was way more American Gladiator/over the top/Dodgeball villains than it was like a send-up of LIV. But if people are seeing it that way—I don’t know—Adam’s a big fan of all these golfers themselves. I don’t think he has a dog in the fight in terms of the league drama.”

Some critics have also compared Maxi Golf’s nontraditional antics to TGL—the tech-infused indoor league cofounded by McIlroy and Tiger Woods with financial backing from the PGA Tour—which completed its first season in March. 

Putter Power on Netflix

Whether Happy Gilmore 2 is about the PGA Tour, LIV, TGL, or none of those leagues, the film had the biggest U.S. opening weekend of all time for a Netflix movie, amassing 46.7 million views in its first three days. 

Ahead of the film’s release, a $500 hockey stick putter from Callaway quickly became a hot sports collectible item.