It’s official! Happy Gilmore 2 is happening!

The worst-kept secret in golf is out. Happy Gilmore 2 is in the works.

A sequel to the 1996 golf comedy smash hit has been greenlit by streaming titan Netflix, with Adam Sandler set to reprise his role as the titular character.

The news was confirmed in a tweet by Netflix yesterday.

Happy Gilmore is back! Adam Sandler will reprise his iconic role in a brand new movie coming to Netflix. pic.twitter.com/AERdtqlJ6j

— Netflix (@netflix) May 15, 2024

This confirms claims made earlier this year by Christopher McDonald, who played the villainous Shooter McGavin in the original movie.

Speaking on American podcast The Ken Carman Show in March, McDonald, said: “I saw Adam about two weeks ago and he said, ‘McDonald, you’re gonna love this.’

“I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘How about that?’ and he hands me the first draft of Happy Gilmore 2.

“He showed me that and I thought, ‘Wow, that would be awesome’. It’s in the works. Fans demand it. I was very, very pleased when I saw that.”

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Talk of a sequel has been rife for years, with Sandler revealing in a September 2022 interview that he was open to the idea of bringing Gilmore back as a golfer competing on the senior tour.

“It hasn’t been discussed, but it certainly has been discussed on the internet,” he said. “Believe me, that senior tour idea, it would be so amazing… Yes, you can greenlight this.”

For what it’s worth, bunkered’s deputy editor Michael McEwan wrote this lengthy Twitter thread in January 2022 in which he laid out a possible scenario for precisely such a film.

So far, there are no specifics on the plot and Netflix has not yet offered a timeline for the release of the movie.

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The news comes only a few months after the passing of Carl Weathers, who played Happy’s coach Chubbs Peterson.

Like Weathers, Frances Bay (Grandma Gilmore), Richard Kiel (Mr Larson) and Bob Barker (himself) have also passed away since the original movie was released.

It’s unclear whether other surviving members of the original cast, including Julie Bowen who played love interest Virginia Venet, or Dennis Dugan, who directed the movie and also played tour boss Doug Thompson, have been approached about reprising their roles.