Over the past three decades, filmmakers have continued to display an appetite for golf movies, despite their mixed box-office results. In Golf World's recent Arts issue, my feature on golf movies explores Hollywood's relationship with the game and how it has evolved in recent years.
Although films such as "Caddyshack," "Happy Gilmore" and "Tin Cup" achieved commercial success by treating the game less than seriously, more recent golf dramas such as "The Legend of Bagger Vance," "The Greatest Game Ever Played" and "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" have been tougher sells. But despite the fact that increasingly bottom-line driven Hollywood studios have shied away from golf movies lately, independent filmmakers' passion for the genre has kept it alive, as the 2011 releases "Seven Days in Utopia" and "Golf in the Kingdom" demonstrate.
The article reveals the stories behind these two new golf movies and shares perspectives from a few Hollywood notables - including "Tin Cup" co-writer/director Ron Shelton and "The Greatest Game Ever Played" screenwriter/producer Mark Frost - on the joys and challenges of making golf movies.
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