‘Stick’ Episode 9 Has More Golf, More Judy Greer, And More Heart

I’m not one for tortured golf metaphors, but Stick really finds its swing in Episode 9. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, since it has already delivered a really great episode and continued to effectively examine grief and honesty. It did lack some golf, though. And as someone who isn’t a golf fan at all, I can readily admit that the show’s better when it attaches its interpersonal drama to the pre-built stakes of the sport. “Showtime” has the most golf of any episode thus far, and even includes a couple of golf pros for good measure, and you can feel how much everything else benefits as a result.

Consider Santi, for instance. As someone who has been dangerously arrogant throughout the entire season, he’s humbled very quickly when he registers for the Ready Safe Invitational alongside his golfing idols. Keegan Bradley is there, as is Wyndham Clark, the latter of whom is used as a nice device to reiterate that Pryce, despite his present circumstances, was once a real presence on the pro scene. But the pressure of the moment gets to Santi, and he comes out of the gates with a lacklustre game that puts his back against the wall for the next day, where he needs to overperform to stay in the tournament.

The drama lives in the space between the rounds. Because of the sponsor exemption he received from Clark Ross, Santi has some media obligations, and Clark uses them as an excuse to lavish him with gifts and show off his swanky lifestyle. It’s obvious, to the audience and Santi, what he’s doing here. Clark has recognised Santi’s talents now and wants to poach him from Pryce, cautioning Santi that Pryce is “cosmic” and is liable to take shortcuts that won’t get him where he needs to be in the pro game. He’s slimy, but he makes some decent points, and I still think Olyphant is hitting the right notes with his performance.

Stick Episode 9 doesn’t seem to agree, though. In what I consider to be the weakest element of the episode, this matter comes up on the course and is almost immediately resolved; indeed, we don’t see Clark again for the rest of the runtime. Pryce’s suggestion that Santi embrace his innate talent rather than conventionality and rocket a difficult shot onto another hole, and then back onto the hole he’s playing, obviously appeals to Santi’s sense of showmanship. But Pryce is immediately vindicated by the move paying off immediately, keeping Santi in the tournament but also earning him a ton of positive press, especially on social media.

This is a means to an end, as we’ll see later. But it also underuses Olyphant, who only showed up in person in the previous episode, and seems to have fulfilled his usefulness to the narrative already. This seems a shame to me, and you have to imagine there’s a version of this story on the floor of a writer’s room somewhere that gave Clark Ross much more to do.

Timothy Olyphant in Stick | Image via Apple TV+

Anyway, there are also big developments among the supporting cast. Amber-Linn turns up to cheer on Pryce and Santi and the best scene of “Showtime” is a quiet scene she shares with Pryce, in which he apologizes for how long it took him to come to terms with Jett’s death, and explains how he was reluctant to accept it because he felt it was a disservice to his memory. Judy Greer has barely been in this, but she has exudes so much genuine warmth in her scenes that it’s like she has been along for the whole ride. And in a mature turn, despite Pryce and Amber-Linn sharing a kiss, Pryce elects not to spend the night in her room and set them both back, instead reassuring her that he’s going to be okay now and she doesn’t need to worry about him.

Mitts gets luckier thanks to a stern word from Zero — a nice inversion of their bus station scene from earlier in the season — that compels him to make a move on Elena. Thankfully, the advance is reciprocated, and the two finally pay off all that lingering romantic tension. And all it took was for Mitts to finally heed the advice on the RV’s kitschy embroidered pillows.

But this romance might be developing at exactly the wrong time. Stick Episode 9 ends with Pryce being approached by a big fan who says his prime swing was better than Tiger’s, which is quite the claim. But this isn’t notable because of the compliment — Pryce gets a few throughout “Showtime” — but because of the person giving it. He’s Santi’s father, Gary, who has suddenly decided — I’m surely entirely coincidentally in the midst of his media attention — he wants to see his son.

Santi seems pleased to see his dad, but for how long? And how will this sudden reunion inevitably impact his performance in the tournament? It’ll be up to the finale to answer those questions.

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