The film follows Happy Gilmore returning to professional golf to help pay for his daughter's overseas ballet school following his wife's death that led him to relapse into alcoholism. Filming took place in New Jersey from September to December 2024. Happy Gilmore 2 was released onto Netflix on July 25, 2025, and received mixed reviews like the original.
Plot
Following his victory at the 1996 Tour Championship,[a] Happy Gilmore has a successful golf career, winning five more championships. He also has five children with his wife Virginia Venit, the professional golf tour's public relations director.
After accidentally killing Virginia in 2014 when one of his drives hits her in the head, Happy feels devastated and quits golf out of guilt. He soon becomes an alcoholic and loses everything after a repossession worker sues him for instigating a brawl when mistaking the worker for a car thief.
Eleven years later, Happy works at a supermarket and lives with his only daughter and youngest child Vienna. His four sons (Gordie, Wayne, Bobby, and Terry) have moved out and are working to support their father and sister. Vienna wants to pursue dancing, and her dance teacher recommends enrolling in a four-year ballet school in Paris, which costs $75,000 annually.
Frank Manatee, CEO of Maxi Energy Drink and the golf league Maxi Golf, approaches Happy and wants him to be the league's star. Happy refuses but resumes playing golf with encouragement from John Daly, wanting to win enough money to put Vienna through ballet school.
Playing his first round since Virginia died, Happy drinks heavily and crashes his golf cart, which gets him fired from his job and into legal trouble. A jury agrees to remove all charges if he completes an alcohol treatment program and refrains from any physical altercations. The program's leader turns out to be Hal L., the caretaker who forced Happy's grandmother into sweat shop labor.[a]
Vienna and John advise Happy to practice seriously and to join the next Tour Championship, which he does. A month later, Happy meets old companions, including Doug Thompson, president of the Tour, who worries about Maxi Golf rising fast. After Happy suggests a competition between the two leagues, Doug proposes a match with the five best players from each league competing against one another.
Happy chooses busboy Oscar Mejías as his new caddie and plays well at the Tour Championship in the first three rounds, but collapses in the fourth on Mother's Day, seeing visions of Virginia on the course before getting drunk; he finishes sixth. The winner, Billy Jenkins, admits to being in Maxi Golf despite taking part in the Tour Championship. Happy replaces him on the team.
Having been in psychiatric care since losing to Happy at the 1996 Tour Championship,[a] Shooter McGavin is granted a release by Frank. He explains to Shooter that all players on Maxi Golf, Billy included, have their iliolumbar ligament severed, increasing their driving distance, and asks him to join as their captain.
Disgusted at this and how Frank's "extreme" version of golf strays from the traditional game, Shooter escapes. Having heard about Virginia's death, he then visits her grave and briefly fights Happy there before they call a truce. Happy then encounters Slim Peterson, whose father Chubbs had mentored Happy in 1996, and Slim joins Shooter in coaching Happy, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Scottie Scheffler to face Maxi Golf.
During the match, Scottie is disqualified in the first round for punching his opponent. Although the course is heavily designed to advantage Maxi Golf, as all their golfers are long drivers, the traditional golfers make it 2–2, with the help of Shooter, who replaces Brooks after he gets injured.
Happy and Billy then face off in a tie-breaker. Happy has a chance to putt for victory, but Frank alters the green to make it impossible to putt. He then makes a deal with Happy: if Happy misses the putt, he must join Maxi Golf. Otherwise, Frank must discontinue Maxi Golf, buy Happy's house back, pay for Vienna's ballet school, give Happy his new electric car, and open an Italian restaurant for Oscar. With help from the latter, Happy sinks the putt and wins.
When Happy celebrates his three-month sobriety, Hal is exposed as a con artist and arrested. Maxi Energy Drink is discontinued after being revealed to cause significant oral health issues, leaving Frank in ruin and in hiding. Happy later accompanies his kids at an airport as they fly off to Paris, promising to join them after completing the British Open, but is forced to walk when he forgets to charge the electric car.
Cast
Adam Sandler as Happy Gilmore, a famous golfer capable of abnormally long shots who comes out of retirement
Julie Bowen as Virginia Gilmore (née Venit), Happy's deceased wife, whom he accidentally killed 11 years prior
Christopher McDonald as Shooter McGavin, Happy's rival who suffered a mental breakdown following his defeat at the Tour Championship at the end of the first film, and teams up with Happy to stop Maxi Golf
Benny Safdie as Frank Manatee, the CEO of Maxi Energy Drink and sponsor of Maxi Golf
John Daly as a fictionalized version of himself, a hermit who lives in Happy's garage
Ben Stiller as Hallowicious "Hal L." Lieberman, the abusive leader of a support group for alcoholics. Stiller reprises his role as Hal L. from both the previous film and Hubie Halloween (2020).[4]
Will Zalatoris as a fictionalized version of himself, depicted as Happy's previously-unnamed former caddy (played by Jared Van Snellenberg in the first film)
Eminem as Donald Floyd Jr., son of the late heckler Donald Sr. (known as the "Jackass" guy and played by Joe Flaherty in the first film)
Verne Lundquist reprises his role as himself from the first film alongside Jack Giarraputo as Jack Beard. Robert Smigel reprises his role as the IRS agent from the first film, now working as a lawyer. Jon Lovitz plays a "dapper" man at a driving range and Rob Schneider appears as a dwarf riding a tricycle in Happy's imagination. Sportscaster Dan Patrick portrays Pat Daniels. Longtime Sandler collaborator Jonathan Loughran portrays the orderly who releases Shooter from the mental facility.
In addition to Boyce, footage from the original film and other sources is used in a tribute during the final moments of the movie. As Happy walks off into the sunset, he looks to the sky and waves to several figures from his past, depicted through archival clips and visual effects. These include Grandma Gilmore (Frances Bay), golf coach Chubbs (Carl Weathers), Donald the Heckler (Joe Flaherty), Bob Barker, Happy's former boss Mr. Larson (Richard Kiel), the alligator that took Chubbs' hand, and Abraham Lincoln (Charles L. Brame, uncredited). The scene serves as a memorial to some beloved characters and actors from the original film who died between the films.
Additionally, contestants from Love Island Australia 6 feature in a scene in which John Daly is intently watching their season of the show in Happy’s garage.[7]
In September 2022, Adam Sandler stated that he hoped to eventually make a sequel to Happy Gilmore, saying he had been creating ideas for what a follow-up film would be, while stating the character would be involved in a senior golf tour.[8] In February 2024, Carl Weathers, who played Chubbs Peterson in the first film, died at age 76. Despite his character's death in the first film, he was set to reprise his role appearing as a ghost in Happy's dreams while his son Slim (Lavell Crawford) would resent Happy for causing his father's death. Weathers' death forced a heavy rewrite with Chubbs instead being given tributes throughout the film and Slim having already forgiven Happy and reduced to a smaller supporting role.[9] Other actors, who had died since the first film that are given tributes, include Frances Bay who played Grandma Anna Gilmore, Richard Kiel who played Mr. Larson, gameshow host Bob Barker who played himself and Joe Flaherty who played Donald the "Jackass" Guy, each of whom died in 2011, 2014, 2023 and 2024, respectively. An indirect tribute was given to Dustin Diamond (who died in 2021), due to the Maxi Golf character Screech being confused for Diamond's character of the same name from Saved by the Bell, despite Diamond and Sandler having never worked together.
In March 2024, Christopher McDonald revealed that a sequel was in development, and that Sandler had shown him a draft of the script to read.[10] During development, the LIV Golf league was founded by the Saudi ArabiaPublic Investment Fund to rival the PGA Tour, giving inspirations to the film's storyline of the rivalry between the Tour and Maxi Golf.[11]
Happy Gilmore 2 premiered at the Lincoln Center in New York City on July 21, 2025.[32] The film was released on Netflix on July 25, 2025.[33] For the week of July 21–27, Happy Gilmore 2 ranked first on Netflix's list of English-language movies, drawing 46.7 million views in three days making it the biggest US Netflix film debut of the year, with 4.7 million views in the US over its initial weekend.[34]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 62% of 122 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "With Adam Sandler and company clearly having a good time, Happy Gilmore 2 thwacks hard with nostalgia when it should've putted but will still put fans of the original back in their happy place."[35]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 52 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[36]
Richard Roeper of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "The scatological 'humor' is as low-brow as it gets; either you find it funny or you don't. I've never been a huge fan of that ... stuff, but the physical, Three Stooges material has a certain, admittedly dumb, slapstick appeal. Still, Happy Gilmore makes par through the strength of its sheer stupid energy and the game efforts of Sandler and his 50 or so co-stars. It's good to be back in that Happy Place."[37]
Conversely, Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Other than a running gag revolving around Happy's use of every possible object as a liquor container, the film's main humor involves people being painfully hit by golf balls. By the time the movie ends and you've been assaulted by one tired gag after another, you'll know exactly how they feel."[38]
Liz Shannon Miller of Consequence gave the film a B- and commented "Between Happy's family life and a whole new series of challenges for him to tackle, there's enough freshness to the plot to keep it from feeling like a total rehash of what came before, while still delivering wild golf stunts and a huge range of cameos."[39]
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