Netflix's Best Sports Documentary Returns This Week - Season 2 Is Even More Dramatic

Netflix's Best Sports Documentary Returns This Week - Season 2 Is Even More Dramatic

If asked to pick the best sports documentary on Netflix, you might choose the blockbuster hit "Formula One: Drive to Survive," or the recent "Beckham" series that spawned a widely shared meme online. But in my opinion, there is only one right answer to this question: the best sports documentary on Netflix right now is "Full Swing."

"Full Swing" portrays the sport of golf in an intimate and hands-on way. Before you immediately stop watching golf because you think it's "boring," please give this fascinating sports documentary a chance to debunk. Believe me. I'm not a big fan of golf either. Still, the first season of "Full Swing" hooked me more than any other show I watched on Netflix last year.

The second season of "Full Swing" arrives on Netflix this week (Wednesday, March 6) and, according to early reviews, may be a step up from the documentary's debut season. If you're looking for a new documentary on Netflix, and something outside of the true crime genre, which is somewhat too much for my taste, here's why I strongly recommend giving "Full Swing" a shot.

Again, you don't have to be a golf superfan to enjoy "Full Swing." Sure, the show touches on some of the great things professional players can do on the golf course, but the real heart of the series is in the personal stories of the players competing for major honors and the rivalries and friendships that form on the green.

The first season spotlights some of golf's biggest names, including Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth, and Rory McIlroy. In "Full Swing," we get a deep look into what makes these highly motivated athletes tick, and how the pressure to perform can overwhelm even the most seasoned of players. It will keep any sports fan riveted.

If you have no idea how golf is played, no problem. The show covers all the basics and makes every effort to guide viewers to the correct terminology, and after watching the first season of the eight-episode show in one sitting, you'll have no problem distinguishing between a birdie, an eagle, and an albatross.

If there is a (relatively minor) flaw, however, "Full Swing" is not very good at providing a clear timeline. The episodes frequently jump between tournaments at different times in the golf calendar, and the later chapters even go back to past tournaments, making it a bit tricky to map the entire season in one's mind. However, this is far from a deal-breaker.

One of the reasons I'm super excited to delve into Season 2 of Full Swing is that the past 12 months of golf have been the most tumultuous in the entire history of the sport. This is largely due to the ongoing feud and eventual proposed partnership between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

The formation and initial announcement of the highly controversial LIV League was touched on in Season 1 of "Full Swing," but in Season 2, a shocking deal between the two was hammered out behind the scenes, and at some point solid professionals like Rory McIlroy, who had opposed LIV, the sport's future The situation becomes even more dramatic when a staunch professional like Rory McIlroy, who had opposed LIV, begins to question the future of the sport itself.

Season 2 of "Full Swing" also features the 2023 Ryder Cup. This is a tournament held every two years between a team made up of the very best golfers in Europe and a team made up of the best golfers in the United States. In addition, the Netflix documentary also depicts the pain and disappointment felt by the players who did not make the cut.

Usually, sports documentaries are only as good as the season, the era, or the subject matter they cover. If the past 12 months had been so routine in the golf world, Season 2 of Full Swing might have struggled to justify its existence. Fortunately, the past year has been truly future-defining for the sport, and Netflix's cameras captured it all.

The first season of "Full Swing" was extremely well received by critics. It maintains a 100% perfect score on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, and while season two has not yet received enough write-ups to score it, early impressions seem to be equally favorable.

The Athletic's Brody Miller feels that the show's second season is a big improvement over the first. He says, "If season one was a generic, superficial introduction to golf for a new audience, season two is a more lived-in, compelling narrative.

Elliot Heath, a reporter for Golf Monthly, declared that Season 2 was better than Season 1, in part because of the inclusion of the Ryder Cup. Heath described the second season as "a handful from start to finish," but said he wished that the spotlight had been renewed on the players rather than focusing on the familiar faces already featured in the first season.

Meanwhile, GolfPass' Tim Gabrich described the second season of the sports documentary as "insightful, endearing, and downright inspiring," but criticized the show for once again being against a linear presentation of events. However, he concluded by calling the Netflix show "a fun look back at the last year in professional golf."

Overall, "Full Swing" Season 2 seems to be basically more of the same. If you're a sports fan looking for a new documentary on Netflix, you can't go wrong with "Full Swing."

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