On the eve of The 152nd Open, a previously little-known golf movie has stormed into the Netflix Top 10 most watched movies chart.
Recently added film The Long Game is now the second most watched movie right now on Netflix in the US, higher than the big release Axel F and only being beaten by Trolls Band Together. Meanwhile, the movie is also charting at four in the UK.
Like a lot of smaller release movies, The Long Game has found a massive new audience on Netflix after taking a modest sounding estimated three million dollars at the box office. To put that figure in context, Barbie's box office figure was over one billion dollars, although to be fair it obviously had a much bigger original budget!
Starring Dennis Quaid and Jay Hernandez, The Long Game is based on a true story and is adapted from the book "Mustang Miracle" by Humberto G. Garcia. It tells the remarkable story of a group of young Mexican-American caddies in the 1950s.
The five caddies were banned from playing on the courses where they caddied, so instead built their own one-hole course to play on! They had hardly any equipment and would retrieve discarded clubs from the bins.
After practicing hard on their golf course in the South Texas desert, they became great golfers. And despite limited resources and racial prejudice, they managed to beat the odds and win the 1957 Texas State High School Golf Championship against all-white schools.
Jay Hernandez plays the coach who mentors the young caddies and previously worked with Quaid on the baseball movie The Rookie. Speaking to ABC, he said of the movie: "It's a true story, one that I was completely unaware of. It is a story of hope and perseverance and sort of transcending the boundaries of the time."
Jay added that he's not a great golfer himself in real life! Meanwhile, The Open starts on Thursday, July 18 at Royal Troon — we have an article on how to watch The Open 2024 online from anywhere.
The film is produced by Javier Chapa, Ben Howard, Dennis Quaid, Marla Quintana and Laura Quaid; executive produced by Jay Hernandez, Phillip Braun, Christian Sosa, Simon Wise, Colleen Barshop, Vincent Cordero, Sherresee Clarke Soares of HarbourView Equity Partners and Mexican boxing champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.
