‘Full Swing’s Rickie Fowler And Team Drive Viewers Through Pro Golf’s Most “Unprecedented, Controversial” Year – Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted

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The creators of the Netflix series Full Swing, a compelling look inside the lives of professional golfers, benefitted from a stroke of luck.

As they were working on Season 1, the rival Saudi-backed LIV Tour sprang up, posing an existential threat to the venerable PGA Tour. “It’s certainly, I would argue, probably the [most] unprecedented, controversial year in maybe any sport,” said executive producer Chad Mumm during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event. “There’s certainly been other attempts and breakaway leagues in the history of sport, but never in the middle of a season, never when you’re sharing a locker room with guys that are leaving or rumored to be leaving and playing in pairings with them.” Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Ian Poulter are among the golfers featured in Full Swing who bolted for LIV, but fellow competitor Rickie Fowler, past winner of the prestigious Players Championship, stuck with the PGA Tour.

He played a key role getting Full Swing off the ground. RELATED: Contenders Docs + Unscripted Deadline’s Complete Coverage “I’m pretty sure I was the first golfer to kind of commit to it,” Fowler said. “Ultimately, once you have the first, it’s a little easier to get the second and third [player].

It wasn’t like I was personally going to guys like, ‘Hey, you should or need to do this.’ But we wanted people to be on board and I think it shows a lot about the guys that were part of the first season, taking a little bit of a leap of faith because this was a new kind of territory for the game of golf.” The series comes from Box to Box Films, Vox Media and PGA Tour Productions.