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We recently were contacted by Jon Fitzgerald, film festival organizer, film maker and subject of the documentary The Back Nine, as to if we were interested in reviewing his film.

I’ll caveat all that follows by unequivocally stating that I am not a film critic.  As evidence of this, I like all Star Wars movies (even the ‘new’ trilogy), all Fletch movies and think Tin Cup should have probably gotten an Oscar nod or two.

That said, I know what I like and when I heard The Back Nine’s premise I was intrigued.  Everyone who has played golf has thought: “What if I could just play more…or if I had a full-time coach….or time to workout…or time to practice…or the right equipment…just how good could I get?”

Almost none of us will ever know.  We lack the time and/or money or put higher priorities like family and our chosen careers over such fantasy.  But Fitzgerald decided to take the challenge head on and see how far he could go in a quest to play professional golf.

My biggest (and perhaps only) issue with The Back Nine comes from that positioning of the documentary.  It makes it sound as though Fitzgerald is going to tackle the Mount Everest of golfing efforts – going from an ‘average’ amateur player, to being able to compete at a professional level.

Unfortunately, (small spoiler alert) that’s not really the direction of the film.  Instead Fitzgerald later caveats his goal as trying to earn an invitation to the Golf Channel’s Amateur Tour National Championship.

An admirable goal, but one that is far less impressive than the idea of making it to a professional tour level event. 

I asked Fitzgerald about this discrepancy and he responded, “I did set a goal of eventually competing professionally.  However, this was obviously going to take more than a few years. Therefore I decided we would create a series of films, tracking the journey.”

That, notable, difference in what I had expected from the film aside I enjoyed The Back Nine in general and in some ways it became a more insightful look into how golf can build bridges with loved one’s, as well as the incredible demands your average touring pro faces in chasing their own dreams of stardom.  I’m not referring to your Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia’s, Lorena Ochoa’s or other superstars.

I’m referring to those pros on the Hooters Tour or the Duramed FUTURES Tour that are often traveling alone and in some cases trying to balance family and their pursuit of a career on the big tour.  In Fitzgeralds own challenges to balance his family life with his ‘main’ career around film festival organization and his pursuit to improve his game you get an inkling of the stress many of these anonymous pros must face.

Fitzgerald recruits a series of professionals to help him in his pursuit. A yoga trainer, a swing coach and even Dr. Joe Parent to serve as his mental coach, along with a few others.  These all serve mainly as the framework to support Fitzgerald’s premise of taking a serious approach to taking his game to its ultimate heights. 

In reality the main story about The Back Nine hinges around family.

Fitzgerald’s relationship with his biological father and stepfather are touched on heavily and serve as a real focal point of the film.  These are the moments that are the most touching, real and insightful into the man and the influencing factors that have lead him to this point in his life.

Personally, I found Fitzgerald’s stepfather often came across as a more empathetic character than his biological father.  Perhaps because there is a fair amount of context left out of the film around the circumstances under which his biological father separated from his mother while the younger Fitzgerald was still a boy. 

But ultimately the film’s most emotional (and one of its most sincere) moment comes when Fitzgerald is interviewing his biological father while on a golf trip in Scotland and Ireland.  Fighting back tears, the elder Fitzgerald says of his relationship with his son, ”I’m just happy to be with him…when we’re together it’s…I don’t think he and I could describe it to you…but it’s love.”  It seems unlikely that a moment of father/son tear jerking like this would have happened were it not for the game of golf.

I won’t spoil the ending, but ultimately Fitzgerald is faced with a choice that is clear, but gut-wrenching at the same time - pick between that which is best for your family and that which you’ve worked so hard to reach and is within your grasp.

As mentioned earlier, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from Fitzgerald that the plan is to provide further chapters in his pursuit, “There will be at least two more feature length films and we will add new clips to the website periodically to fill the gaps between features.”

In these times of Netflix, iTunes and On Demand video it’s hard to recommend buying The Back Nine, unless you are a collector of golf related films.  But should it become available as a rental I would definitely recommend taking the approximately 86 minutes of running time to watch.

As a side, I initially was so intrigued by the project because of having read Tom Coyne’s Paper Tiger.  Coyne sets out very much to achieve the same goal – play with the pros.  Coyne comes much closer though and his humor and wit are hard to match.  It’s become one of my favorite golf books, and yet some of it’s most poignant moments (like Fitzgerald’s film) come when golf is merely the backdrop to a larger human story.  I highly recommend you give it a read.