Despite seeing Adam Sandler comedies quickly descend into utter shite that makes you question your life choices for having found yourself watching them, there was a golden age when a number of genuinely funny films were released.
Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy, are movies that are still quoted and fondly remembered to this day.
In fact, you actually can't watch or play a round of golf without someone suggesting you "just taaap it in" or that you will not make a shot because you are "a jackass", which is evidence as to how loved the great golf movie is.
Part of brilliance is the characters, and Shooter McGavin represents a truly spectacular fictional sporting villain (in fact he came it at #2 on our all-time fictional sporting villains list).
Speaking to AVclub.com, Christopher McDonald has revealed the perks that came with one of his favourite roles in his career:
I had a lot of fun doing that part as a villain who was in on the joke. I liked that part about it, that I could play it that way, and they let me do it.
Also, my golf game got sick. I was playing golf five hours a day for six days a week. It was nutty. I was pretty good at that time. And now I basically get to play golf for free for the rest of my life, which is pretty good, too.
He also gets to take selfies with Tiger Woods, and presumably gets love from every professional golfer he comes across.
Also interesting from that interview was the fact that McDonald had to be convinced to take the role after turning it down twice.
Uh, yeah, I turned that movie down twice. I had seen Adam Sandler in a movie called Billy Madison, and I’d seen him on Saturday Night Live, and I thought he was funny.
But I turned it down because I was really tired. I’d just done two movies back-to-back in Vancouver. But they said, “They’d really like for you to play this Shooter McGavin guy.” And I’m, like, “Ugh, it’s another bad guy. I don’t wanna do that.” “Yeah, but at least it’s a funny movie.” And it did look pretty funny.
So that weekend, I played a golf tournament in Seattle, and I won. And I thought, “You know, it would be fun to do that golf movie, maybe.” So I drove back up to Vancouver when I heard that they were still looking, and I said, “I want to meet Adam.” And within 15 minutes, I knew I had to do this movie, ’cause this man was absolutely sick and funny and very smart—very, very smart. And that’s when I decided it would be a really good idea to do it.
Thankfully that golf tournament went well, as if he had shanked a few balls into the drink we may have been robbed of one of the greatest performances in a sports film.
If you're interested, you can check out the rest of our sporting villain rankings below.
