NEED TO KNOW
Stick, an eight-episode vehicle for the always likable Owen Wilson, is a golfer’s Ted Lasso.
Like that Apple TV+ hit about an American coach (Jason Sudeikis) finding a winning formula for a British football team, Stick is genial, relaxing and easygoing, possibly more than it needs to be. You may occasionally wish everyone would pile into a turbo-charged golf cart and just go. Or maybe there could be a subplot about competitive ballroom dancing, featuring a guest role for Wilson’s brother, Luke. That’d be something!
But if you’re missing Lasso and/or still recovering from the year’s other very dark shows — remember Jason Isaacs encouraging his family to drink poisoned piña coladas on HBO’s The White Lotus? Stephen Graham sobbing alone in his son’s bedroom on Netflix’s Adolescence? — this might be what you need.
Apple TV+
Wilson plays Pryce “Stick” Cahill, a once-celebrated golfer whose career ended when he flamed out on the course in a notoriously shaming viral moment. (Already teetering on the edge of a breakdown following a personal tragedy, he was goaded to the point of irrational fury by a rival.) Now, he’s divorced (Judy Greer, always sympathetic, is the ex), on the verge of losing his home and barely scraping by giving lessons at a club. He has an optimistic smile and a salesman’s nudging confidence, and he delivers one-liners with that familiar Wilson drawl — it’s the sound of a surfer remembering a perfect wave — but his life is subpar.
Then Stick discovers what looks like redemption, and a path forward: a 17-year-old kid, Santi (Peter Dager), a dazzling, natural golf whiz who could be the next Tiger Woods. Stick becomes Santi’s coach, aiming to take him on the road and all the way to tournament glory.
First, though, he has to win over Santi’s mother (Mariana Treviño, warm but vinegary), who demands $100,000 up front. (Her years working in a balloon store have given her an inspiration: Invest all that money in helium!)
It’s not until the final three episodes or so that Stick comes into focus as a sports saga with serious stakes. That’s when Timothy Olyphant shows up as Clark Ross, a slick golf legend who has the clout, money and cunning to undercut Stick and make Santi his own protegé. (However, the devil will end up assuming a different, more surprising form.) You don’t root for Ross, but Olyphant, slim and handsome, makes him awfully alluring.
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Beyond that, the show is mostly content to amble along, loping toward the green and from time to time indulging in odd bits of nonsense. Some of this feels more like dawdling: What’s the point of Stick’s cynical old buddy (Marc Maron) getting trapped under a fold-out bed?
Stick’s larger focus, though, is working out the central emotional relationships, which adds a kind of poignant, life-is-passing resonance to it all. (Within any golf hole one finds darkness.) None of these characters — apart from Olyphant’s Ross — has lived up to his or her dreams, or even defined them. Wilson is especially good at suggesting a fundamental sunniness dimmed by thin clouds. Dager, as Santi, has a Timothée Chalamet vibe, which isn’t really enough, not when Stick and Santi are, on some level, forging a father-son bond.
But you’ll likely stick with Stick for its hope, kindness and indulgent fondness for human silliness.
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Stick’s first three episodes are streaming now on Apple TV+.
