Full Swing: Season 1 review (with spoilers!)

Finau had a reputation for being one of the nicest and most popular guys on tour long before cameras started rolling on the series and this episode is only likely to enhance it. Like Dahmen, the emotion he displays when he talks about his mother’s death brings you closer to him, whilst his frustration at missing out on his son Jraice’s own golf tournament because it clashed with The 150th Open will strike a chord with any parent who has missed a school play, music recital, sports day, etc. He is indisputably one of the good guys. 

Collin Morikawa also appears in this episode but his “built to be like Tiger”, driven personality is almost completely overshadowed by Finau’s more relatable warmth.

What it’s like to be a rookie on tour goes under the microscope in Episode 7, with the emphasis particularly on Mito Pereira and Sahith Theegala. For me, this was the only time that the series lost a little momentum. Both seem like great guys – particularly Theegala – but each had already retained their playing privileges long before the season concluded. There was no real sense of jeopardy or panic approaching the year’s final events and so the episode was forced to focus more on the ‘knowns’ of being in your first year on tour. 

Yes, it’s an adjustment. Yes, you form friendships. Yes, you have to plan better and do you own laundry. Instead of concentrating on digging an inch wide and a mile deep, the episode instead felt like it was a mile-wide and an inch deep. Much like Pereira’s only final hole collapse at the US PGA, it was hard to shift the feeling that this was an opportunity missed. A good episode that could have been great.   

The season finale, however, is a triumph and, for that, you can thank a certain R. McIlroy. 

Having initially turned down the opportunity to participate in the show, Rory was gently, gradually and ultimately persuaded by exec producer Chad Mumm to take part. 

Episode 8 concentrates on the Irishman’s spectacular 2022 in which he combined a stunning return to form on the course with taking a central role off it in the PGA Tour’s fight against LIV Golf. 

Articulate and charismatic, McIlroy’s status as one of the game’s great interviewees is already well established so it’s no surprise to see him on rare form in front of the cameras. The only surprising thing, indeed, is just how loose he is. 

From openly revelling in Patrick Reed’s world rankings struggles, to letting the cameras film him representing his fellow players’ reservations about the new PGA Tour schedule in a lunch with tournaments officer Andy Pazder, to shouting “Fuck you, Phil” during a massage in an overt and unapologetic dig at Phil Mickelson, McIlroy’s candour is jarring in a good way. 

The Holywood man’s victory in the FedEx Cup was as close to a Hollywood ending as the producers could have dreamt of. 

Overall thoughts…

The objective of any behind-the-scenes documentary is to add humanity to headline-makers. Full Swing achieves that and more. 

Stylishly shot, exquisitely edited and deftly structured, it provides a fantastic and much-needed gateway into one of the most individualistic and misunderstood of all sports. 

The use of golf journalists, broadcasters and coaches to narrate and contextualise the drama speaks to a confident and informed editorial policy. Too often, golf relies on former players to add colour to the spectacle, and not always for the better. The neutrality and detachment of expert voices that follow the tour is either untrusted or deliberately overlooked. It’s to Full Swing’s credit that it resists that narrow mindset, with Dan Rapaport and Sean Foley making particularly superb contributions.

Some of the drone footage is utterly jaw-dropping (watch out for the water tower at Augusta National) whilst the balance of tournament play and normal life is judged to perfection.

Choosing to cover rather than ignore LIV is also 100% the right decision. The show would have lost all credibility by overlooking it and it’s to Mumm and Co’s credit that they didn’t. 

Criticisms? I don’t have many but they merit discussion.

There’s a little too much by way of “I hope this makes it in” and “Did the cameras get that?” It’s perhaps too much to ask for a ‘fourth wall’ in documentary filmmaking but, from what I gather, the producers banked somewhere in the region of 700 hours’ worth of content. One nod to Netflix would have sufficed. After that, it starts to feel a little self-indulgent. 

The closed-caption explainers of golf terms such as birdie, par, bogey in episode one were also a bit of a surprise. Clearly, this was done for the benefit of what producers no doubt hope will be a large non-golf audience but, for those who do follow the game or even have the most basic understanding of how it works, this felt like an over-simplification.

Also, there’s no Tiger Woods. Not in a direct sense, at least. He appears in cutaway footage and as a reference point in other conversations but that’s it. Look, convincing the world’s most reticent sportsman to open up to a group of strangers representing one of the biggest streaming services on the planet can’t be easy. But it’s precisely because Tiger is so influential and transcendent that any golf series in which he doesn’t star feels incomplete. Of course, perhaps now that he’s seen the product, he’ll show up in season two.

It certainly looks like a second season is on the cards, too. Whilst nobody will officially say so, this feels like a long-term commitment, much like Drive To Survive which is now into its fifth season. There is so much that Full Swing hasn’t yet been able to explore, not least the Ryder Cup. It has got off to a spectacularly good start. Now, it needs to be trusted to continue. 

Quite simply, this is the production and the platform that golf has been crying out for. To give up now would be an almighty shank. 

• Full Swing is available to watch on Netflix from February 15.