The Untold Truth Of Happy Gilmore

Many great stories are inspired by lived experiences and "Happy Gilmore" is a prime example. When coming up with ideas for the story, Adam Sandler turned to one of his happy places, spending quality time with his dad. The end result is one of the most hilarious golf movies of all time, which answers the question of what happens when a hockey mentality collides with the high society sport.

Even though Sandler's manchild brand of humor started with his previous film, "Billy Madison," one could argue that the comedian enhanced it with Happy since he brought more heart to the character. While he's still an immature ass in many circumstances, Happy is motivated by the desire to help his grandma and save her home, which makes him a more relatable and likable protagonist than Billy. 

While it was early in the comedian's career, "Happy Gilmore" remains one of Sandler's best films, eventually leading to the 2025 arrival of the long-anticipated "Happy Gilmore 2." A lot of love and dedication went into making the original, which is clear from the inside stories revealed below. 

Adam Sandler's father, Stanley, was such an avid golfer that after he retired at 54, he spent a considerable amount of his free time on the links. Naturally, he often took his son with him, so Sandler grew to love the game as well, especially after watching the classic comedy "Caddyshack." Years later, it only made sense that he'd write his own wacky story taking place on the course. So, Sandler and his writing partner Tim Herlihy started brainstorming ideas — and it was one unique outing with his dad that served as inspiration.

When golfing with his father in New Hampshire as a teen, the comedian brought along his friend Kyle McDonough, who would later become a professional hockey player. In his biography, "Adam Sandler: America's Comedian," the actor recalled, "[Kyle] didn't really know how to play, he just smacked the ball real far." But just like with Happy in the film, that skill was enough to dominate everyone and even beat Sandler's dad.

In an interview on "The Dan Patrick Show," Sandler joked that his father may have liked McDonough more than his own son. He said, "My father loved Kyle so much. It was like, Kyle was the only guy in my life that I'd be like 'Dad, remember I'm your kid, man.'"

After "Happy Gilmore," Christopher McDonald has often been associated with his iconic role as the villain Shooter McGavin, so it might be hard to believe that he originally turned down the part not just once, but twice. 

When talking with And So it Begins..., McDonald explained, "I was tired, I wanted to see more of my family. But then I played a round of golf in Seattle, and we won. And that high was something else. So, with my golf shoes still on, I went in the locker room, called my agent and said, 'Is that golf movie still available, because I just won this tournament and I'm feeling a little bit, well, Shooterish.'"

McDonald then met with Adam Sandler and quickly decided to appear in the film because the comedian made him laugh for nearly their entire conversation. Director Dennis Dugan wanted McDonald for the role so badly that he made sure the actor's family could come live near the production, which also influenced his decision to take the part.

One of the best scenes in "Happy Gilmore" is when his arguments with Bob Barker escalate into a full-blown fist fight. The game show host's beatdown of Happy is impressive, but Barker was not the primary choice for the memorable cameo. Adam Sandler revealed on "The Dan Patrick Show" that Ed McMahon was who he originally had in mind when Tim Herlihy was working on the script,

At first, Sandler simply said that when they reached out to McMahon, he said "no." However, when pressed on whether he was really contacted, Sandler added, "I doubt he got it. I think we heard something like it's too vulgar or something like that. But I think the script was a little rougher, we cursed a little bit more. And then when Ed said no, we dialed it down a bit for Bob Barker."

When Bob Barker was asked to make what would later become the most popular cameo in "Happy Gilmore," he had already spent years training with martial arts expert Chuck Norris, as well as karate champion and fight choreographer Pat Johnson. The game show host joked that his experience honing his skills over those many years is why he accepted the part. In "Adam Sandler: America's Comedian," Barker explained, "And, of course, in twenty years I never won a fight. They both beat me up. So, when they offered me this script, I said, 'I'll do it,' because I win the fight."

Adam Sandler recalled how early in the morning on the day of filming the classic showdown, Barker was stretching and getting ready for the fight in the bitter cold like a boss. On the other hand, Barker admitted that he thought he was going to die from pneumonia, so he added, "Next time I'd like to work inside. And I told Adam the other night that when he makes 'Happy Gilmore II' that I would like more money and I want a love scene in my next picture."

Sadly, Barker passed away in 2023 at the impressive age of 99, so he was not able to appear in 2025's "Happy Gilmore 2." On the other hand, fans got to see a hilarious, epic second round of fighting (indoors) with Sandler on Comedy Central's "Night of Too Many Stars."

For many of Adam Sandler's classic hits, including "Happy Gilmore," his old college roommate and close friend, Tim Herlihy, was there as his writing partner in crime. One of the reasons that the two have worked so well together is because they respect each other's ideas. 

In an interview with Esquire, Herlihy explained, "'SNL' teaches you to be very generous with credit for stuff. To take credit for someone else's joke is a s*****, s***** thing to do. Adam is really good about that. If I say, 'That's a good idea, Adam,' then he'll say, 'Well, actually so and so gave me that joke.' It's a responsibility to be upfront about it."

There is one joke, however, that neither writer is willing to admit the other one came up with, which just so happens to be one of the funniest lines in the movie — when Shooter McGavin accidentally blurts out, "I eat pieces of s*** like you for breakfast." Herlihy is completely positive he wrote that, but also says, "And Adam is equally sure that he wrote that joke," so the disagreement lives on.

In the late '90s, Adam Sandler cowrote and starred in a string of hits like "The Wedding Singer," "Big Daddy," and "The Waterboy," but that success had to start somewhere, and it happened to be at a difficult moment in his life. After five years on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," the comedian was fired from the show and admitted that at the time he was both sad and angry over how it all played out. 

On "The Howard Stern Show" (via CNBC), Sandler said, "I remember when I saw Farley, and he said 'Me too, they don't want me either,' we were both like 'f*** this s***.' We got mad together, pretended we weren't sad, pretended this was for the best."

Yet just a few months before Sandler's final "SNL" performance in 1995, "Billy Madison" was released to massive success at the box office with $25.6 million. Sandler then followed up his first film with "Happy Gilmore" in 1996, which raked in even more cash at $41.2 million. With how great their first two projects turned out, the movie star and his writing partner, Tim Herlihy, gained the confidence to establish their own film company, Happy Madison Productions, in 1999.

There are so many memorable characters in "Happy Gilmore," but one of the best was Chubbs, played by Carl Weathers. However, just as Ed McMahon was Adam Sandler's first choice before he went with Bob Barker, Carl Weathers was also not who Sandler and Tim Herlihy had in mind at first.

Decades later, Amos appeared in "Uncut Gems," which starred Sandler, and the truth was revealed. In an interview with Vulture, directors Josh and Benny Safdie explained how Sandler and Herlihy approached the executives at Universal with their plan for Chubbs, saying, "And then the studio is like, 'Love John Amos, but what about Carl Weathers?' Sandler and Herlihy were like, 'Well, we love Carl Weathers, but we kind of wrote it for John Amos.' The studio is like, 'It's gonna be Carl Weathers.' It was very brief in time, but they talked to Amos about it."

Amos later confirmed his brief involvement with the film to Insider, saying, "There was talk about it at one time. From what I remember I even did a screen test. It was up in Canada. It never worked out, but no hard feelings." But the actor also admitted that he never saw "Happy Gilmore," or watched other movies he didn't get to appear in, to avoid sad feelings over roles he missed out on.

Aside from his classic performance as Chubbs Peterson in "Happy Gilmore," Carl Weathers was also well-known for his role as badass Colonel Al Dillon in "Predator," alongside action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the film, the duo are part of a military team sent into South America who are caught completely unprepared when they encounter an extremely advanced alien with horrific technology. Weathers' character Dillon didn't fare too well in his fight with the lethal, sci-fi creature hunting the group of human warriors, resulting in the loss of his right arm.

Fast forward to the Adam Sandler flick nearly a decade later and Carl Weathers' Chubbs also had some terrible luck with a nasty creature. This time he gets into a brutal confrontation with an alligator, and the animal ends up taking the hand from his right arm, the same one shot off in "Predator." This coincidence was most likely an inside joke and a nod to fans of the sci-fi action classic.

Stars like Carl Weathers, Christopher McDonald, and Bob Barker were very glad they got involved with "Happy Gilmore," but golfer Lee Trevino had a very different opinion about the project. The pro athlete made a few memorable, though mostly silent, cameos throughout the film, yet he did point out to Shooter McGavin that "Grizzly Adams DID have a beard."

The goofy, brief scenes with the golfer are great examples of what gives the movie some of its charm, and the film would be a little less without them. With that said, it is fortunate that Trevino did not read the script because if he had, he would not have chosen to appear in "Happy Gilmore." The pro golfer told CBS-19 (via Yahoo! Sports), "If they were going to use all those foul words in there, I never would have done it."

Adam Sandler is not just famous for starring in his own hit comedies, but is also known for basically having an entourage of fellow actor friends who appear in many of his films. Many have side roles or cameos in Sandler flicks, but some have also been featured as the lead, especially ones made by Happy Madison Productions.

One close friend in particular not only had a supporting part in all of Sandler's top movies early on, but then got the opportunity to star in "Grandma's Boy" in 2006. Allen Covert met Sandler in a comedy class when they were students at NYU and the two have been friends ever since. Even though he had small roles in films with Sandler before "Happy Gilmore," like "Airheads" and "Bulletproof," the golf comedy was the first project written by Sandler that Covert appeared in, as the caddy Otto.

Among the many fans of "Happy Gilmore" are pro golfers themselves. Christopher McDonald talked on "The Dan Patrick Show" about how when he golfs with the pros, not only do they love the movie, but a lot of them think it is fun to try the signature Happy-style swing. The actor explained, "I meet Rory McIlroy, I meet all these great players. J.T., you know, D.J., all these guys and they all try that shot. They all do it, they think it's the funniest thing in the world."

The odd method is a legal way to swing too, as McDonald added, "Anything you do behind the ball, apparently, is legal. And so, these guys are crushing it and I'm going, 'God, they're good athletes.' But you know, that's what it takes. It takes a good athlete to hit that shot."

Doug Thompson, the golf commissioner in "Happy Gilmore," is initially disgusted at Happy's antics. That is, until it's pointed out to him how much money Happy is bringing to golf — and suddenly, Happy starts to grow on him. Playing Doug is Dennis Dugan, who directed not only "Happy Gilmore" but subsequent Adam Sandler movies "Big Daddy," "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," "Just Go with It," "Jack and Jill," and both installments of "Grown Ups."

While "Happy Gilmore" was the first time Sandler and Dugan worked together, it wasn't the first time Dugan tried directing the actor. Dugan had heavily campaigned to get Sandler to star in Dugan's previous film, "Brain Donors," but was vetoed by the studio since Sandler was fairly unknown at the time. But it all worked out in the end, and the pair have had a long and lucrative creative partnership since "Happy Gilmore." 

Dugan has appeared as an actor in most of the films he made with Sandler, but the majority were little more than cameos. Doug Thompson remains Dugan's biggest role on screen in a Sandler movie, and one of his last acting roles of that size in general since he started focusing more on directing. 

It's easy enough to show an actor taking a swing at a golf ball and then cut to a different angle of the shot going on its way. And it's natural to assume that that's what happened the majority of the time in "Happy Gilmore." But to hear Christopher McDonald tell it, he did almost all of his own golfing in the movie because he is actually a skilled player in real life. When asked by Vulture if he used a double, McDonald replied, "I did everything myself except for the one shot when Shooter plunks a ball into the water [...] But yes, I did all of my own golfing."

In fact, to hear McDonald tell it, he was perhaps a little too good of a golfer, to the point that it caused some issues during filming. Elsewhere in the interview, he said, "I kept making shots when the script called for me to miss them. I would have to apologize and assure everyone I would miss it next time." Actors' hidden talents sometimes wind up playing a huge part in the movie, but in this case, it seems like McDonald's talents both helped and hurt the production in various ways. 

As wild a comedy as "Happy Gilmore" is and as fast and loose as it plays with the sport of golf, the production still wanted to at least try to get in the ballpark — or should we say, on the fairway — of realism. So Mark Lye, former professional golfer and commentator, was brought on to serve as the script consultant and make sure the baseline details about the sport of golf were relatively correct — even if "Happy Gilmore" is still ultimately a sports movie that gets sports very wrong.

While Lye understood that the movie was meant to be both a comedy and an exaggerated view of golf, there were various things that he just couldn't sign off on. So he decided to have the movie's core creative team attend a real PGA Tour event, complete with behind-the-scenes access, so they could get a better feel for the vibe and culture of professional golf. Lye made the writers go back to the drawing board four separate times to make changes he deemed necessary for his seal of approval. It wasn't until the fifth draft that the writers and Lye finally found the happy medium for "Happy Gilmore" between Lye's demands and the writers' comedic vision. 

One of the specific things that professional golf consultant Mark Lye took issue with early on in "Happy Gilmore" was the movie's climactic tour showdown between Happy and Shooter. The movie had already been pretty candid about its mockery of professional golf, something Lye winced at a bit but was mostly willing to abide for the sake of creative freedom. However, when the original script planned to have the big match actually take place at the famed Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, Lye felt he had to exercise his veto power.

"They had the green jacket. They were desecrating the [United States Golf Association]. Making fun of Augusta National," Lye explained in an interview for the PGA Tour's official website. "I just said, 'No, no, no. I don't think you better go there at all. We can get the same effect by doing our own fictitious event.'" So in the final movie, the tournament is just referred to by the generic name of the Tour Championship rather than the Masters Tournament. And just to further put some distance between the movie and golf's version of the Super Bowl, Shooter and Happy are vying for a gold jacket instead of the Masters Tournament's iconic green one. 

Though he starred in iconic franchises like "Predator" and "Rocky" and would later join the "Star Wars" universe via "The Mandalorian," there's no denying that one of Carl Weathers' most important roles was Chubbs in "Happy Gilmore." It not only showed off his often overlooked comedic chops, but it introduced him to a whole new generation that was at the time too young to have seen him as Apollo Creed or Al Dillon.

Unfortunately for Weathers, that career boost came at a massive price. Chubbs meets his demise when he sees that Happy has gifted him the head of the alligator that bit off Chubbs's hand. The shock of seeing the alligator again causes Chubbs to scream in terror and back up right out of a nearby window, falling to his death. Given that you don't even see Weathers falling, it seems like it would have been a pretty easy stunt to safely fake. In fact, Weathers had to fall out of a real window onto padded bags — but things didn't go according to plan.

As Weathers told GQ in 2020, "When I went out backwards instead of hitting something flat, my body kind of got trapped, my head on the bags, and my tailbone at the wall." He tried to tough it out, but later found out he had fractured multiple vertebrae and spent years in agonizing pain as a result.  

Not only was Happy Gilmore himself inspired by an old friend of Adam Sandler's, but there was also some real-life inspiration behind Shooter McGavin. Both the way Shooter dresses and the way he carries himself were modeled after a specific golf legend. In the aforementioned Vulture interview with Christopher McDonald, the actor revealed which golfer he based Shooter's fashion sense on. 

"I actually dressed him based on Greg Norman, one of the greatest golf players of all time," McDonald told the outlet. "Greg always looked so sharp and preppy when he played. He wore a golf hat that I ended up not using, but he was so meticulous with his outfits. The sweater vests, the cardigans." But it also went beyond clothing. As McDonald told CNN, "Norman's also one of those guys that just carried himself sort of bad-ass." 

Though Shooter McGavin is the main antagonist of "Happy Gilmore" on the greens, there is a whole other bad guy who darkens the movie off the course. As Happy works to earn money for his grandma, we also see the struggles she is dealing with in the very shady nursing home she's been forced to live in. The inhabitants of the nursing home are being forced to knit quilts and perform other forms of manual labor for cruel orderly Hal L. (Ben Stiller), who verbally abuses his charges at every turn — while being sure to put on a warm, friendly smile any time Happy is around so that Happy is none the wiser.

In the original theatrical version of the movie, Happy eventually picks up his grandma from the nursing home and Hal is never seen again. But in a deleted scene, Grandma ends up telling Happy what Hal has been doing, which results in Happy throwing Hal out of the facility's second-story window. If you're having a movie Mandela effect right now that has you questioning everything, and could swear that the scene is in the original film, that's probably because it's sometimes shown in various television cuts of "Happy Gilmore." 

Throughout "Happy Gilmore," the same duo of announcers are seen commenting on both Happy's prowess — or lack thereof — in his golf game and his erratic, temperamental behavior. Well, one of them comments, anyway. The one that does all the talking is Verne Lundquist, longtime sports announcer who covered not only professional golf but the NFL, the NBA, and other sports events over his 50+ year career. So who's that other guy, and why doesn't he say anything?

The production wanted a two-man commentary team on screen for looks, but didn't necessarily need another famous commentator or even an actor to play a second announcer. Lundquist had it pretty well handled and knew what he was doing. So they nabbed Jack Giarraputo, Adam Sandler's longtime friend and producing partner, to put on a suit and sit next to Lundquist in the booth. But Giarraputo isn't a member of the Screen Actors Guild, so it would have been against union rules to have him actually speak any dialogue. And thus, Lundquist got a silent partner to just nod, shrug, and otherwise silently react to everything he said. 

Verne Lundquist might have had a fake partner in "Happy Gilmore," but he had a very real one in his actual commentating career. Pat Haden covered many sporting events with Lundquist over the years, and the pair were also close friends. Even though the movie clearly only wanted one real commentator, given Haden's thoughts on "Happy Gilmore" and Lundquist's participation in it, Haden would have probably turned down the chance to co-star in the movie anyway.

In an appearance on the podcast Just Not Sports, Lundquist recalled the first conversation he had with Haden following the release of "Happy Gilmore." "[Pat] said, 'By the way, I just gotta tell you something. I am so embarrassed for you. I took my daughter to see this silly movie you were in. Are you at all embarrassed about being seen in a movie like that? You should be,'" Lundquist recalled. But Lundquist got the last laugh. Shortly after, three teenagers saw the pair walking and were excited to see Lundquist, called to him by name, and mentioned "Happy Gilmore." Lundquist said he then turned to his friend and remarked, "I rest my case." 

It's one thing to explain the science behind "Jurassic Park" or other similar movie franchises, but scientists were apparently also curious about "Happy Gilmore" — more specifically, his trademark drive. The TV series "Sport Science" set about studying whether or not Happy's swing was truly more powerful than a more traditional golf swing. The show enlisted the help of pro golfer Padraig Harrington, who had already been known to successfully perform Happy's drive on multiple occasions, to execute the swing in front of motion capture cameras in order to more accurately record the results. 

As it turns out, Harrington regularly got an additional 30 yards on average with Happy's swing than with his regular swing, determining that it indeed makes a drive more powerful. However, it was also established that the extra power came at the expense of a significant loss of accuracy, with Harrington explaining that he'd never use the shot in professional play for that very reason. 

For years, "Caddyshack" was the most obvious answer when you asked golf fans, amateur golfers, and professional golfers what the best golf movie of all time is. And while that 1980 classic remains beloved among the pros, with some still declaring it's their favorite, a generational shift in the demographics of the sport have changed things a bit. 

In addition to just being the older movie, "Caddyshack" also revolves heavily around the world of rich, snooty golfers and the way they treat the teenage staffers of golf courses and resorts. It's something that was accurate to its day when "Caddyshack" was released, but now represents a view of the sport and its players that is no longer the case. As older golfers, the ones who grew up in the world of golf that "Caddyshack" depicts, have retired, Millennial and younger Gen X golfers have become the sport's more dominant demographic. And with that, "Happy Gilmore" is cited far more often when today's pros are asked to name the best golf movie.

Some still say "Caddyshack" is their favorite, and many at least put it in their top five, but "Happy Gilmore" has taken the place of "Caddyshack" as the ultimate golf movie among pro golfers.