Watch The Back Nine For Free

Just what I expected

Awesome Movie

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I give it a 3 because it wasn't awful, it's just summarized completely wrong. I started watching this expecting a man's serious effort to try and play professional golf at 40, something I would find very inspirational. What I got was a bio/documentary about this guy and his relationship with his father and stepfather with some golf in between. He says a few times, "I've been told with things before I can't do it and I prove people wrong" but he never put in the proper time when it came to golf in this, and I think it was a wasted documentary as a result. There is one point where he is talking to an instructor about it and he asks how much time he's going to dedicate to it, the guy says "I'm gonna try for 10 hours..." and the instructor responds bug-eyed, "a week?", like "is this guy serious?" The pros put in 40-80 hours a week for 10 years to get where they are. I'm all about chasing a dream, but there's a difference between a long shot and physically impossible. The protagonist busts his butt running a business (60-80 hours a week according to him), and wants to be there for his family. There's nothing wrong with that and I'm not attacking him for it. But, I do feel sorry for the people who supported him financially and made this documentary though, because as much as he may have convinced himself this was an honest effort to play pro, it wasn't. He never ever ever stood a shot from the beginning with the amount of time he was able to put in and golf just ends up being a backdrop to what seems to be a midlife crisis of sorts.

There is very little golf in this documentary. I didn't actually time it, but only a few minutes of the whole running time. There is also very little in the way of instruction or what the subject did to improve his game. Watching it, my most prevalent feeling was "This is a very nicely made home movie."Jon Fitzgerald is (was) turning 40 back in about 2007, the actual time line isn't defined but an award has a 2008 date on it, and a comment in Scotland indicated that was filmed in 2009. He was a 15 handicap golfer, which isn't too bad by amateur golf standards.So Jon, who apparently loves the game of golf, wonders if, at the age of 40, he can improve his game enough to "play professionally." Those of us who play golf know that is a pipe dream, maybe a one in a million chance. This film never came across to me as a serious attempt to gain professional golfer proficiency.Had the subject, Jon, been a more interesting, more dynamic person, this might have helped make the film more interesting. But Jon is about the most calm, plain vanilla guy you will see. A nice guy, family man, father. But do we really want to see a film, almost one and one-half hours long, about a really nice man and his family? He was the filmmaker, and he focuses the camera on himself most of the time. Many close-up shots of his face, many shots of him putting at home, many very slow-moving scenes of him talking, or others talking, about the process.I went into viewing this film with high hopes, but came away very disappointed. The production values are good, but it isn't about the golf, it is about one guy's journey to figure out his life.Does he actually get good enough to play professionally? It depends on your definition of "professionally."