Liam McCool. Burns compared the process to having to learn the choreog- raphy of dancing or fighting, so he ad- vised Curdt to have Hernandez focus on learning the movements and sequence of the swing for two months without worrying about hitting a ball. “Luckily the magic of moviemaking was on my side, so on the physical end Ed had me focus on making sure my swing looked good first,” Hernandez says. “I’m glad all that time practis- ing the twist in front of a mirror paid off. I started training in earnest a few months before filming, and we filmed for about five weeks all in. I think by the end I can confidently say I could play a real, albeit slow, game on my own and know how.” The movie’s secret sauce, however, comes from the close relationships among the cast that led to playful on- screen – and on-course – banter. Burns says his biggest challenge was getting the audience to care about a family golf tournament, but that was made a lot easier by the actors seemingly car- ing about each other – and being com- fortable to needle each other during the tournament scenes. “If that was my first film with him, I would have been so respectful to Ed be- cause I don’t know how he does it all,” says James, who was appearing in his fifth film with Burns. “With the fact that we’ve had some miles on our odometer, it was a natural thing to be able to kind of get in there and throw some elbows. Familiarity definitely breeds contempt in this case, in all the best ways.” Like the characters in “Finnegan’s Foursome,” the actors who played them also learned that golf is a gift that keeps on giving. “You could imagine this was the greatest job you could ever have,” Burns says. “Anytime you get green lit, that is a gift, and you gotta show real gratitude for that because it’s impossible to get these small indie movies made. To work with a bunch of your friends, and then on our days off, or even sometimes if we wrapped early, we’d grab our bags and go play nine until the sun went down. The nice thing is in the summer in Ire- land, the sun doesn’t go down until late at night, so we got a ton of golf in.”
‘All my friends told me not to believe him . . . But two years later we were in Ireland shooting the film. That’s who Ed is.’ “It was important for all of us to get it right, which is why we shot as many real shots as possible,” Muller says. “It’s also a movie about the regular golfer, so it has plenty of bumps and bruises as well.” “Ed saw me hit the ball and told me right then and there, ‘I have this golf movie I’m about to write. You’re gonna play my son, and we’re gonna shoot it in Ireland,’ ” Muller (“The Good Wife,” “Chicago PD”) says. “All my friends told me not to believe him. ‘It’s Hollywood,’ they said. ‘People make empty prom- ises all the time.’ But two years later we were in Ireland shooting the film. That’s who Ed is.” Muller doesn’t anticipate ever hav- ing a dream job quite like this again – unless there’s a sequel – and he appreci- ated Burns’ commitment to making the golf scenes realistic. you either embrace what they do or you kind of reject it.” Brian Muller, a long-hitting 10-hand- icap who plays Burns’ son, had the least brushing up to do with his game. Having previously worked with Burns, his part was written for him a few years before when they played during the filming of the series “Bridge and Tunnel.” That process was even more involved for actress Erica Hernandez, who plays James’ daughter and didn’t know what a bogey was before filming started. “It was definitely a crash course,” says Her- nandez, another “Bridge and Tunnel” alum. “I started consuming everything golf-related I could.” Hernandez (“Jury Duty,” “True Lies”) developed a very passable swing thanks to Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher Dr Alison Curdt and a coach in Ireland named
to me, like, ‘So is this now, like, more important to you than your work?’ That’s kinda where the light bulb went off,” Burns (“Saving Private Ryan,” “The Brothers McMullen”) says. “I had to figure out how I could marry my two passions.” Burns began working on a script while collecting jokes, stories and on- course barbs from people he’d play with. He said he wanted to create a movie that connected the recreational part of the game with the professional part and history, hence the character of his dad in the movie, played by Ian McElhinney. It was a part of the plot that resonated with James. “My dad was 50 when he passed away, so I never really got a chance to have more time with him in life, let alone on the golf course,” James (“Spotlight,” “Shrek the Musical”) says. “This movie really hit home in a very particular way to me as well.” What Burns hopes will resonate with golf fans is the authenticity of the on- course scenes shot mostly at Carne Golf Links, which he calls one of his “favourite spots on the planet,” and which Golf Digest ranks among the World’s 100 Greatest Courses. Burns says he watched and studied every golf movie ever made, and while “Tin Cup” is his favourite, he thinks “The Greatest Game Every Played” captures the golf moments the best. “The reason ‘Hoosiers’ is such a great basketball film is that they shot the hoop really well,” says Burns, who also manages to work a nice homage to his beloved New York Knicks into the movie. “You’ve seen other basketball movies or sports movies where they didn’t get it right.” With the action taking place within a family of recreational golfers, no one’s swing had to look tour quality. Howev- er, Burns didn’t want the crew to look like hacks, either. “I had to reconcile the fact that Brian d’arcy James and I have lousy swings if your father was a golf pro, right? How- ever, I have a ton of friends whose par- ents are professional musicians and they’re lousy musicians,” Burns says. “They said part of it is, depending on your relationship with your old man,
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 31
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2026
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