- Network: Apple TV
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 4, 2025
Critic Reviews
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Wilson’s particular talent is ensuring that the performance never tips over into a flakiness that can read as vacant. All of that technique is poured into Pryce Cahill with wildly enjoyable results.
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Stick is as funny as it is wholesome, and as wholesome as it is endearing. This silly golf comedy is winner in every sense and a show you might just restart the moment the final credits roll.
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Stick is not a “set-up, joke, set-up, joke” gag-fest; its gentle situational humour will leave you with a smile on your face rather than rolling in the aisles.
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Like Ted Lasso, this is a story that is unafraid to take its flawed characters on an emotionally charged comedic flight over fairway and rough, through the woods and into bunkers, before leaving them all a putt at happiness. If you’re looking for a new comedy, it’s worth a shot.
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Stick's shortcomings don't stop it from being an enjoyable show, but they are frustrating wrinkles that can hopefully be ironed out in the second half of the season, or perhaps even in a second. As it stands, I am still prepared to bet that this is the best golf comedy you'll see this summer.
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If you're looking for groundbreaking high art, you won't find it at a golf comedy. If you're after a little bit of solace, a tiny measure of happiness and feel-good uplift when we could all use it, "Stick" has the goods.
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Stick is a very good series. But its faults, however minor, might be enough to discourage viewers from sticking with it, especially in this competitive streaming landscape.
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A game changer it isn’t, but Stick still comes out a few strokes ahead of par.
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“Stick” shares some foundational plot and character DNA with Apple TV+ standouts “Ted Lasso” and “Shrinking.” But while it doesn’t match the depth of writing or the emotional resonance of those series, it’s a solid and satisfying effort with the potential for a multi-season run.
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“Stick” is a little too wary of poking at its own emotional underbelly, and the home stretch of the 10-episode season veers into overt golf boosterism at the expense of the primary plot. Wilson’s charisma nonetheless forms a solid enough foundation to make the enterprise worthwhile.
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Nothing Stick is doing on that front is reinventing the wheel. But why would it? As it stands, this might already be the most pleasant trip you’ll take all summer.
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While many of the more predictable twists and inevitable road bumps merit an eye roll or two—Santi has daddy and trust issues that erupt at the most inconvenient times—there’s no way you won’t root for this ad hoc family.
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Stick may not be the next Ted Lasso that Apple TV+ wants it to be, but its charming cast and strong emotional core make it a satisfying watch overall.
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Fortunately, Wilson remains as watchable as anyone of a similar pedigree, from McConaughey to Harrelson, and it’s thanks to this that a show supported by a foundation of all that came before becomes a genuinely easy watch.
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It’s a sentimental, easygoing comedy.
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This golfing comedy is just about on par — but it could have taken a bigger swing and move beyond the usual sporting stereotypes. Still, Owen Wilson shines.
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It’s all perfectly watchable but, like following an actual golf tournament on TV, if you nod off during the second round only waking up for the closing holes, you won’t have missed too much. As sports comedies go, Stick is pretty much par for the course.
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The series is essentially a 10-episode sports movie, with all the hooks, shanks and holes that come with the territory, so the outright surprises are few. But it’s the kind of thing one will like, if one has any affection for Mr. Wilson’s brand of arrested adolescence.
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Stretching clichés so thin that its comedy by and large vanishes, thereby neutering charming turns from Owen Wilson and Mark Maron, this slog is like a more heartfelt Happy Gilmore if it ran as long as Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.
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Warmhearted, inoffensive TV has its place, and there’s plenty audiences might appreciate about “Stick” despite some predictable beats; stories about healing can bridge a lot of thematic incoherence. But for a show that talks a fair bit about when to take big swings — and when not to — “Stick” is disappointingly timid.
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The season may be a serviceable substitute until “Ted Lasso” returns, but there’s no mistaking this amateur imitation for its veteran inspiration.
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Stick nails the ending, with a big finish that’s cornily brilliant in the way that perhaps only sports stories can be, and it still just about gets there under par. But the series lamentably has to hack its way through a longer, rougher route to get there than it might have liked.
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A handful of chuckles over 10 episodes isn't enough to put Stick on the comedy leaderboard, even in the "upbeat white guy" division.
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The overall frustration about Stick missing its target feels almost amplified by the few times that creator Jason Keller and his team find the hole.
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The elements of the show that do start to gel only make the trauma-plot framework more annoying. Every time Stick starts to roll ahead into some momentum for the future, the story has to boomerang around into a reminder of where they’ve all been. Each step forward comes with two steps back.
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Its heart is firmly in the right place, but it leaks treacle and cliché all over the screen. Worse still, you can watch several of the first season’s 10 episodes without laughing once. “Stick” inspires impassivity, not a good quality for a comedy or really, any other kind of television.
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There could be an enjoyable 90-minute comedy hidden away in here, but a full TV season painfully overstretches a standard sports underdog story until you just wish it would call it a day and go home.