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Find your Sport Nation frequencyWhy Happy Gilmore is the greatest sports movie of all time
Brad Lewis • April 25th, 2025 12:05 pm
Controversial take time - Happy Gilmore is the greatest sports movie of all time.
We are talking an intertwining love story, a nasty, but super cool villain, a redemption arc, a dead mentor, a loveable grannie and sporting theatre.
To sum it up for you strange people that have never watched Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler plays Happy – a washed-out hockey player who had a killer slapshot but a heated temper and less-than-par skating ability.
Long story short he needs money to save his Grannie’s house from foreclosure and discovers he can hit a golf ball further than pretty much any player on the planet.
He faces three major problems in said quest to make a quarter of a million bucks. He can’t putt, he lacks any sort of golf etiquette, and he ends up stealing the would-be girlfriend of the film’s villain – Shooter McGavin – the No. 1 player on the planet – a goat movie villain.
Anyway – spoiler alert: he gets the girl, wins a big tournament and saves the day.
The movie takes the audience on a roller coaster of emotions as Happy deals with Shooter’s shithousery, the death of his coach, letting down his Gran and the new public exposure of being golf’s new huge Tiger Wood’s like ratings hit.
Also – it’s super funny and probably Sandler’s best work of his career.
It worries me that a sequel is incoming later this year and I fear it may besmirch this Oscar worthy masterpiece. Why mess with perfection i say.
Look – I get it – Money Ball, Any Given Sunday, Remember The Titans and others are all dramatic movie epics. But Happy Gilmore wins the gold medal for me, and if you don’t agree, well quite frankly, you can eat a piece of s***t for breakfast. (#MovieReference)
Brad Lewis is the executive producer of Beaver & Guy, tune in 3-6pm weekdays on Sport Nation and subscribe the podcast on Spotify.
