Cinema, Golf and Romanticism

Abstract

We shall begin with a paradox: golf appears in our representation as a sport initially aristocratic, then bourgeois. Thus, we would expect the means of its construction to be marked by a utilitarian and elitist vision that would engender tensions. From three films about golf and its players, the first a drama, and the other two inspired by biographies, we shall demonstrate the structuring presence of romantic language in the construction of the films and sport in question. The points prioritized are the sense of the game, the golf course, the player’s relationship with the course, and finding one’s swing; in short, how one creates a work of art out of the game and an artist out of the golfer.