A recurring scene in Apple TV+’s golf-themed comedy series, Stick, exemplifies a fundamental flaw. When aspiring pro Santi (Peter Dager) tells his mentor, former PGA Tour pro Pryce (Owen Wilson), that he’s ready for “the show,” the line lands with a thud for anyone familiar with the sport. The PGA Tour has never been called “the show”—a nickname firmly established in Major League Baseball. This single, inauthentic detail highlights the main problem with a series that otherwise has significant potential.
Premiering in June, Stick has several strengths. Owen Wilson delivers a heartfelt performance as a hotheaded ex-golfer grappling with demons from his past, both on the course and as a father. The show also features a fun dynamic between Pryce’s former caddie, Mitts (Marc Maron), and Santi’s mother, Elena (Mariana Treviño), along with a textured teenage romance between Santi and his caddie, Zero (Lilli Kay).
The series falters, however, in a key area for any sports-centric story: it fails to balance broad dramatic appeal with the authentic details that resonate with the sport’s followers. A successful sports show doesn’t need to be hyper-realistic—as Apple TV+’s own hit Ted Lasso proved with its improbable story of an American football coach in English soccer. But it must inhabit its world convincingly. Stick‘s sloppiness with basic golf culture and terminology lessens what could have been a much stronger series.
While showrunner Jason Keller wisely avoids deep dives into the technical minutiae of golf, the show takes creative liberties that strain credulity. Some are aspirational, such as depicting a more inclusive golf world where a non-binary caddie is fully accepted without prejudice—a stark contrast to the sport’s real-life cultural conservatism. Others are purely for spectacle, like Santi hitting a 250-yard shot that ricochets off a tiny sign with a level of precision beyond even the greatest players.
Where the show truly misses the mark is in its depiction of golf culture. Unlike Ted Lasso, which serves as a detailed love letter to English football, Stick is riddled with inaccuracies. In one episode, a supposedly fearsome bunker, nicknamed “The Copacabana,” is revealed to be a simple sand trap that a player of Santi’s caliber would handle with ease. Another scene features loud, heckling “golf bros” at a quiet amateur tournament—a type of fan behavior typically confined to major PGA Tour events.
The errors accumulate throughout the series. The famous Muirfield course is consistently mispronounced. Characters use incorrect terminology, saying a chip shot is “made” instead of “hit,” or referring to the “PGA tournament” when they mean the PGA Tour—a distinction elite players would not confuse. These may seem like minor issues, but their sheer volume undermines the show’s credibility.
While the classic comedy Happy Gilmore succeeded by satirizing the environment of golf, Stick uses the sport more as a vehicle for storylines about growth and grief. The show is often at its best when it leaves the course entirely, raising the question of why it needed to be a golf show in the first place.
For viewers unfamiliar with golf, the strong character work and emotional arcs may be enough. The on-screen relationship between Wilson’s character and his young protégé is compelling. Yet, for a show built around a specific sport, the constant, avoidable errors are a distraction. Stick takes some big swings and often connects, but it misses too many easy putts to be considered great.
