Things get rather meta in The Adult Swim Golf Classic in which actor Adam Scott plays real-life golfer Adam Scott. While sports like football, basketball and baseball have inspired many a movie and TV show, golf – for whatever reason – is a sport often neglected by the entertainment industry. Of course, there are comedies like Caddyshack or dramas like The Greatest Game Ever Played but by and large, golf hasn’t proved much of an inspiration for film directors or TV executives.
The Adult Swim Golf Classic goes some way to address that issue. Dreamed up by actor Jon Daly of Kroll Show fame, this is a comedy special that aired on Adult Swim in 2016 and sees Daly go head-to-head in a charity golf match against Parks And Recreation star Adam Scott at the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles. Just as Adam Scott plays Australian golfer Adam Scott, Jon Daly takes on the role of his golfing namesake – John Daly, the American golfer known for his outlandish outfits and larger-than-life character.
Just to make things a little more confusing, The Adult Swim Golf Classic is set not in the present-day but 1966 – back when golfer Daly was still a baby and a couple of decades before golfer Adam Scott was even born. The real kicker, however, is that neither Jon Daly nor Adam Scott (the actors, that is) are particularly good at golf or very well versed in its rules which results in a drawn-out but hilarious match. Despite all the pretense and the players’ obviously high handicaps, the competition is very real with Daly representing the charity Save the Children and Scott playing for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and a share of a $15,000 cash prize is at stake.
So, how did The Adult Swim Golf Class come to be? When Daly the actor was a young lad, his dad introduced him to golf via classic televised tournaments seen in the likes of Shell’s Wonderful World Of Golf and informed him of a certain golfer who shared his name. This kick-started something of an obsession for Daly, especially later in life when he was starting as an actor and would Google his name only for the results to be dominated by John Daly the golfer. He even went so far as to create a website - jondalyisjohndaly.com – which he populated with pictures of himself in full John Daly makeup and costume to infiltrate the golfer’s Google Image search results.
When Daly was filming The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty with Adam Scott, he discovered his co-star had the same problem with his own golfer namesake - although Scott didn’t set up a website like Daly did - and a few years later The Adult Swim Golf Classic was born. As for the future, Daly hopes he can persuade Adult Swim to let him make more Golf Classic installments – perhaps even one that sees him and Adam Scott go head-to-head with the other John Daly and Adam Scott.