The Greatest Game Ever Played - Walt Disney Studios Motion ...

TEEING OFF
TEEING OFF:
THE TRUE FAIRY TALE OF FRANCIS OUIMET COMES TO THE SCREEN
In 1913, a 20-year-old kid named
Francis Ouimet unexpectedly became
an overnight American hero. In an
electrifying standoff at golf’s U.S.
Open, he stunned American audiences
by proving that golf wasn’t just a game
for the country club elite but a sport in
which any American—no matter how
youthful, how poor or how unknown—
could aspire to triumph. It was to
become one of those rare defining
moments in sports history. Inspired by Francis Ouimet, the infant sport of golf soon exploded
into one of America’s most popular pastimes and a source of dreams for numerous young
heroes-in-the-making, all the way up to Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam.
But somehow Ouimet’s fantastic story was mostly lost from American culture. Few people
even knew his name until award-winning television-writer-turned-novelist Mark Frost (Hill
Street Blues) wrote a book about Ouimet that highlighted his classic battle on the green with
British champion Harry Vardon and his friendship with the hooky-playing grade-school caddy
who talked him through the tournament. Frost’s book was celebrated by critics not only as a
heart-stopping sports drama but as a sweeping social history and an emotionally moving tale
of a tireless underdog fighting his way to the top.
The tale also seemed to be rife with
cinematic potential, especially because it
was that rare true story of sports heroism
that had never been told on screen before.
Frost was inspired to adapt his book into a
screenplay. “I realized that this story had
all the elements that make for a
compelling motion picture,” says Frost. “It
has an appealing hero, it has great villains,
it has wonderful characters like Eddie
Lowery, Francis’s caddie—a trash-talking
sixth-grader, who was literally engulfed by the golf bag he carried. It also captures a period in
time that was a pivotal moment in American history. 1913 was just before our entry into World
War I, when the country had an honesty about itself that I think is worth going back to and
looking at again. And at its heart, this is a story of inspiration—about a kid who refused to
give up his dreams and overcame all the obstacles standing in his way.”
One person who was immediately moved by Frost’s screenplay and the story of Francis
Ouimet was accomplished film actor and rising director Bill Paxton, who made his feature
film directorial debut in 2001 with the thriller Frailty and was now looking for a very different
kind of project.
Not unlike Ouimet, Paxton had grown up chasing balls on a local golf course as a kid and
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