Callaway Taps In Hockey Stick Putter for Happy Gilmore 2

When Glad Gilmore was first launched, even the individuals who produce golf gear for Callaway admit it was a stuffier, stodgier time for his or her sport.

Practically 30 years later, as Netflix prepares to debut Glad Gilmore 2 on July 25 and Callaway brings a reinvented model of the unique movie’s hockey-stick putter to the lots, golf has discovered its glad place.

Adam Sandler’s golf comedy initially made its method to theaters in February 1996, six months earlier than Tiger Woods started his skilled profession and greater than a 12 months earlier than he’d win his first match. There have been solely 24.4 million golfers, and so they had been generally outlined by the rounds they performed on conventional programs, almost a 3rd of which had been non-public.

It was an surroundings that would plausibly create villainous golfers who’d purchase a hockey participant’s grandmother’s home out from below her and eat terrible things for breakfast simply to take care of the established order.

“In the event you return to the unique Glad Gilmore within the mid ’90s, the stereotypes that had been in there have been nation membership members that he was virtually type of poking enjoyable at. Golf at that stage was an older man’s sport, and Shooter McGavin is the traditional golfer who doesn’t need these individuals coming in messing up our golf course,” mentioned Nick McInally, vp of world advertising and marketing at Callaway Golf. ”In the event you now quick ahead to the center of the 2020s, you’ve received a state of affairs the place—whether or not it’s driving vary, whether or not it’s Five Iron Golf—the place persons are simply going into the town and hitting some balls in a simulator or taking part in a golf course of their basement, then you’ve got Topgolf bringing new individuals of various ages into the sport.”

Amid the discharge of Glad Gilmore 2 and a surge in informal golf curiosity, Callaway has launched collections of limited-edition Chrome Tour golf balls emblazoned with photos of Gilmore’s hockey jersey, stick, and quotes from the movie like “just tap it in” and “it’s all in the hips.” Callaway has additionally reworked Gilmore’s Hockey Stick Putter right into a $499 souvenir with a stainless-steel head, urethane “pistol grip” insert, and tube sock headcover that fairly visibly doesn’t conform to skilled golf specs, “so nobody goes to be profitable the Open with it this 12 months,” in accordance with McInally.