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Stick, a wry and warm-hearted new comedy on Apple TV+, sets out to do for golf what Ted Lasso did for football (and moustaches).
The 10-part series follows the relationship between a faded legend of the game and a gifted, green prodigy. Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) is an erstwhile champion who has been reduced to stroking the egos of pompous, polo-shirted patrons at a country club in Indiana. Having suffered a spectacular, career-ending breakdown at a tournament nearly two decades earlier, the man they once called “Stick” has since been haunted by long-forgotten glories and old regrets.
That is until he catches a glimpse of the future in 17-year-old Santi (Peter Dager), whose attempt to sneak on to the private driving range unnoticed is thwarted by the air-splitting sound of a clean 300-yard strike. Pryce makes it his mission to turn this supermarket shelf-stacker into a star, sinking his savings into getting the kid to qualify for a national competition. High-risk long shots were his forte as a player, after all.
Like his new self-appointed coach, Santi’s game is handicapped by his emotional volatility. Training him means containing his self-sabotaging instincts as well as nurturing his skill. But every shanked strike, every piece of encouragement or advice proffered or ignored brings tension. While Santi feels the impact of his once overbearing, now estranged father, Pryce is confronted with his own collapse, which came after the death of his child. Gradually, each finds solace in their coach-protégé/father-son dynamic.
Joining the duo on their emotional journey and cross-country road trip to competitions are Santi’s protective mother Elena (Mariana Treviño), Pryce’s cantankerous former caddie Mitts (Marc Maron) and a teen nomad named Zero (Lilli Kay). Driving from state to state in an RV, these unlikely travelling companions start to resemble a makeshift family. If that sounds twee, then trust the eternally irascible Maron to keep things sardonic.
He and Wilson make for an amiable odd couple. Wilson brings an undercurrent of melancholy to Pryce’s mellow affability while Maron reveals a sweetness behind Mitts’s cynical shtick. The rest of the ensemble share an enjoyably unaffected rapport that gets the most out of a lightly comic script and makes the sentiment feel earned.
Much of what unfolds is a classic sporting redemption story. There are stirring pep-talks, misty-eyed life lessons and feelgood, fist-pumping scenes set to classic rock anthems (The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” is used more than once). Yet while Stick might be the latest show to fall under the banner of so-called “dad TV” — especially with Mitts’s grumblings about Gen-Z idiosyncrasies and Pryce’s musings about the “metaphysical” elegance of golf — it has enough charm and universal appeal to win over a wider audience. I say that as someone who has neither raised a child nor picked up a golf club.
★★★★☆
Episodes 1-3 on Apple TV+ from June 4; new episodes released weekly
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