When Happy Gilmore was first released, even the people who produce golf equipment for Callaway admit it was a stuffier, stodgier time for their sport.

Nearly 30 years later, as Netflix prepares to debut Happy Gilmore 2 on July 25 and Callaway brings a reinvented version of the original film’s hockey-stick putter to the masses, golf has found its happy place.

Adam Sandler’s golf comedy originally made its way to theaters in February 1996, six months before Tiger Woods began his professional career and more than a year before he’d win his first tournament. There were only 24.4 million golfers, and they were commonly defined by the rounds they played on traditional courses, nearly a third of which were private.

It was an environment that could plausibly create villainous golfers who’d buy a hockey player’s grandmother’s house out from under her and eat terrible things for breakfast just to maintain the status quo.

“If you go back to the original Happy Gilmore in the mid ’90s, the stereotypes that were in there were country club members that he was almost kind of poking fun at. Golf at that stage was an older man’s game, and Shooter McGavin is the classic golfer who doesn’t want these people coming in messing up our golf course,” said Nick McInally, vice president of global marketing at Callaway Golf. ”If you now fast forward to the middle of the 2020s, you’ve got a situation where—whether it’s driving range, whether it’s Five Iron Golf—where people are just going into the city and hitting some balls in a simulator or playing a golf course in their basement, then you have Topgolf bringing new people of different ages into the game.”

Amid the release of Happy Gilmore 2 and a surge in casual golf interest, Callaway has released collections of limited-edition Chrome Tour golf balls emblazoned with images of Gilmore’s hockey jersey, stick, and quotes from the film like “just tap it in” and “it’s all in the hips.” Callaway has also reworked Gilmore’s Hockey Stick Putter into a $499 keepsake with a stainless steel head, urethane “pistol grip” insert, and tube sock headcover that quite visibly doesn’t conform to professional golf specifications, “so no one is going to be winning the Open with it this year,” according to McInally.

Callaway worked with Netflix and Happy Madison on the new products, with Callaway’s Odyssey playing a slightly greater role in the creative process than it did in making the original Happy Gilmore putter. Before filming the 1999 original, director Dennis Dugan approached Odyssey Sports marketer Vikash Sanyal about making a putter resembling a hockey stick for the movie. The company agreed, asking only that one of its inserts be used as the stick and its logo appear on the blade. 

The company was purchased by Callaway for $130 million a year after Happy Gilmore’s release, and a version of the putter made it into McInally’s Callaway office in the U.K. a few years ago. While “a little big” and “great for camera, but not necessarily fit for purpose,” the hockey stick putter predicted not only Callaway’s participation in a Happy Gilmore sequel, but its golf marketing future that a strong social media presence, trick-shot influencers, and celebrity partners like Stephen Curry, Justin Herbert, and Niall Horan. 

“Whenever we’re doing marketing, whenever we’re doing activation, we’re always trying to target golfers, but there’s an audience that will sit and watch the Golf Channel every week, and watch the PGA Tour, watch the LPGA, etc.,” McInally said. “That’s probably about 15 to 20% of your audience when you get the opportunity of something like [Happy Gilmore 2], that hardcore golfers are going to watch, occasional golfers are going to watch, comedy fans are going to watch, Adam Sandler, fans are going to watch. It just makes it so much bigger.”

The National Golf Federation found that 32.9 million of the 45 million people who played golf in the U.S. in 2023 did so at off-course facilities. Last year, the number of golfers playing only at off-course facilities rose from 18.4 million to more than 19 million. McInally noted that, in South Korea, more than half of the country’s golfers will never play on a course.

While Callaway is aiming for that whole group of golfers, the changes to golf demographics have it taking a running-start swing at the sport’s more casual fans. McInally noted that, in the past, Callaway would’ve launched a campaign around Happy Gilmore 2 with a few TV ads, a feature in Golf Digest, print ads, a presence at Dick’s Sporting Goods or the PGA Tour Superstore—and hope that a Callaway-sponsored player would win that weekend.

Today, Callaway’s campaigns see support on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube from Good Good Golf, Bob Does Sports, and Dude Perfect. It hosts launch events at Topgolf and brings in the San Diego Padres’ Manny Machado and gives chef Min Woo Lee his own line of golf balls.

For the Happy Gilmore 2 debut, Callaway is hosting a Putt Happy Challenge and having ambassadors Roger Steele, Horan, Herbert, and Underrated Golf founder and clutch putter Curry see how many 10-foot putts they can drain in 30 seconds with the Hockey Stick Putter. At the American Century celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe this weekend, the putter is finding its way into the mix. When the film itself debuts on July 25, Callaway is partnering with Topgolf on screenings and competitions where players can win the putter for themselves. 

👀👀 https://t.co/3rRy5kacAi

— Odyssey Golf (@odysseygolf) July 1, 2025

In Brooklyn, Odyssey attached a 70-foot putter to a Netflix billboard previewing Happy Gilmore 2. For the company that invested in the TravisMathew apparel brand and Five Iron Golf simulators and merged with Topgolf (though the brands are splitting later this year), it’s a broad cultural and marketing strategy that would make Happy Gilmore feel at home—and Callaway isn’t too good for that home.

“Golf became cool, and that wasn’t something that you could say 25, 30 years ago—certainly before Tiger came along—but now, in terms of modern culture, it’s not frowned upon to play golf anymore,” McInally said. “So, how do we fuel that? How do we get people excited about our brands? But also, how do we get people excited about the game? That’s hopefully where Happy Gilmore 2 is going to help us.”