Wait a minute … Utopia? As in The Perfect Place, like the mystical Shanghai-la? Or the Buddhist's Nirvana? Actually, no. Utopia is a small town in Texas. Based on David L Cook's book “Golf's Sacred Journey: Seven Days,” Seven Days in Utopia is about a golfer who choke during a pro tour. Ready to give up the game, he was traveling through a rural town when he had an accident.
Lucas Black (starred in The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, Friday Night Lights) played Luke Chilosm, the talented young golfer and Robert Duvall (starred in Gone in 60 Seconds, Deep Impact) is the former professional golfer, Johnny Crawford, that helped Chilosm find his way back. The movie also starred golf champion Stewart Cink (winner of 2009 Open Championship) and K.J. Choi (winner of 2011 The Players Championship).
Crawford used methods that would make Mr. Miyaki (played by Pat Morita) from the original Karate Kid (or Mr. Han, played by Jackie Chan, from the remake of Karate Kid) proud. The methods may be unconventional but it helped to get the point across to Chilosm.
Surely the movie will draw the golfers to the cinema. But when I went to watch the movie yesterday (Sunday) at 7.05 p.m., I was surprised to see less than 15 people in the cinema with me. The youngest in the cinema is 11-year-old. Are golfers giving this movie the skip?
Steve Edgar, who marshals at City Park Nine (golf course at Fort Collins, Colo.), has seen the movie. Though he has been playing golf for 12 years, he said he is still learning. Nevertheless, he asked jokingly, “Must I go to Utopia to improve my golf game too?”
Jokes aside, Edgar feels that his game can improve with the three concept that the movie keeps reiterating … See, Feel, Trust. He truly enjoyed the show and would encourage his dad, who loves golf too, to see the movie.
In an interview with HuffPost Sports, Lucas Black was asked if his golf experience resonate with what the film advocates. Black agrees that emotion plays a role in golf. Just in case you think that he had a stand-in to do his swinging shots or the great swing was the product of film editing, the article reports that he did not.
So will the movie help me, a newbie to golf? I can't say for sure, but I definitely say that I enjoyed the movie and am glad I went to see it.
Disclosure: Steve Edgar are acquaintances of the writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment