Happy Gilmore

Adam Sandler wrote this with Tim Herlihy, their second script together after Billy Madison, and Dennis Dugan directed. In early drafts Happy won the Masters and the green jacket. Mark Lye, a former PGA Tour player hired as script consultant, objected to Augusta National and the USGA being mocked that way, so the closing tournament stopped being the Masters and the jacket turned gold. The story sits inside American tour golf but was shot around Vancouver, because the exchange rate made Canada cheaper at the time. The long drive that carries the jokes is handed to Happy early; everything after it is the short game, the putting Chubbs drills into him. Shooter is not written as a fool either, so the tournament result stays open. Ben Stiller plays Hal, the nursing home orderly, uncredited. Lee Trevino appears as himself and later said he would have turned it down had he known how much swearing there would be. Sandler brought the character back in Happy Gilmore 2, on Netflix in 2025. A good fit if you want the tournament scenes to follow real golf logic and still accept an old man wrestling an alligator in the same film. Not for you if Happy’s tantrum, repeated in the same shape each time, will wear you down.