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Characters add heart to historic golfing film
By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Sep 30, 2005 - 12:03:09 am CDT

In 1913, the U.S. Open staged what has forever been known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” a golf match that, by its conclusion, paired 20-year-old American Francis Ouimet against British legend Harry Vardon, the dominant player of his time and still regarded as one of the best golfers ever.

That story, focusing primarily on young Ouimet, has been brought to the screen by golf-loving director Bill Paxton and screenwriter Mark Frost, who wrote the book on which the film is based. Together, they’ve created what is arguably the best movie ever about golf, and certainly the best film ever done about a true golf story.

It helps that they captured star-in-the-making Shia LaBeouf to play Ouimet. Best known for his performance in “Holes,” LaBeouf becomes Ouimet, having learned to play golf for the movie, then fully inhabiting the character.

A working class kid who grew up on the edge of the now-famed country club in Brookline, Mass., Ouimet fell in love with the game, sneaking into a Vardon exhibition when he was a teen and spending time on the course by carrying the clubs for the snooty elite who claimed the game as its own a century ago.

Ouimet became a superb player. But his stern father, Arthur (Elias Koteas), tried to stop him from playing, knowing that the game the boy loved was the province of the rich.

Across the Atlantic, Vardon (Stephen Dillane), himself a former caddie who was never fully accepted by the aristocrats who ran golf in the U.K., is being egged on by newspaper magnate Lord Northcliff (Peter Firth) to go to America and win the U.S. Open.

How Ouimet and Vardon end up together in Brookline is the heart of the story, and I won’t divulge the details here. Nor is there any chance I’m going to say much about what happens once the golfing starts. Suffice it to say that Paxton and Frost manage to combine nearly perfectly the human story and sports drama.

A key to that is one of the truly memorable supporting characters in sports history and one who charms his way across the big screen. When one of Ouimet’s friends couldn’t caddie for him in the opening round of the Open, his little brother stepped in.

Loyal, proud, funny and about as tall as the golf bag, 10-year-old Eddie Lowery (terrifically played by Josh Flitter) first shocks everyone but Ouimet, who found a lifelong friend as well as a source of unwavering inspiration and support. That’s the kind of character Hollywood usually makes up, but “The Greatest Game Ever Played” already had him for real.

All of that would have gone for naught had the golf not looked right. Paxton is a golf nut who came to the game as a kid living outside the country club much like Ouimet, and he made his film fit the game. That starts with the period costumes, clubs and balls and extends to the course itself — a far less lush and tailored layout than we’re accustomed to seeing today.

The actors all practiced enough to look like real golfers of that era. Today’s full swing was unheard of back then. Dillane, who was a golfer before being cast, studied film of Vardon to the point that he looks very much like the man he is playing.

To get inside the minds of the golfers, Paxton uses a device that could have turned out hokey, but actually works. When Vardon and, later, Ouimet are concentrating on a shot, all the distractions in their field of vision disappear from the screen, leaving just a route to the pin that the ball is sure to follow.

In some ways, “The Greatest Game Ever Played” is a conventional sports movie. But because it’s based on a real story, has convincing golf, better acting and writing and direction from Frost and Paxton that play up the class conflict and the true measure of Ouimet’s success and challenge to the system that ran golf, it is compelling.

For those who love golf, it’s a chance to see one of the legendary tales of the game come to life on the big screen. That’s why “The Greatest Game Ever Played” is likely to be around for years to come.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.