The True Story Behind the Golf Drama ‘The Long Game’

Golf is massive in Texas – significantly highschool golf. The brand new underdog drama topping the film charts on Netflix, The Long Game, is an inspiring true story of five Mexican-American teenagers and their coaches in segregated south Texas who took on the racist and cultural appropriation of the Fifties and got here out the opposite aspect as champions. Based mostly on the 2010 novel Miracle Mustangs by Humberto G. Garcia, the movie stars Jay Hernandez as JB Peña, a person who refused to simply accept that he and his Latino college students from San Felipe Excessive Faculty needs to be relegated to being caddies and refused admittance into the most effective nation golf equipment in Southwest Texas. Julio Quintana directs an emotional story that co-stars Dennis Quaid as Frank Mitchell, the professional golfer who will bend over backward to see that Pena and his rag-tag group of younger golfers get each alternative to show that they belong, and Cheech Marin, the membership groundskeeper who additionally helps the “Miracle Mustangs” succeed.

What Is ‘The Lengthy Sport’ About?

Within the mid-Fifties, within the border city in Texas of Del Rio, Mexican American youngsters have been seen as second-class residents who have been anticipated to be caddies and carry golf golf equipment for the white members of the luxury native nation membership. Joe Treviño (Julian Works) is the emotionally advanced chief of a gaggle of younger Mexican-American youngsters who love golf however have nowhere to play on the town. JB Peña arrives as the highschool’s new superintendent and decides to kind San Felipe’s first golf group on the all-Mexican-American faculty. Joe, together with buddies Mario Lomas (Christian Gallegos), Felipe Romero (Miguel Angel Garcia), Lupe Felan (José Julián), and Gene Vasquez (Gregory Diaz IV), determine that they are going to kind the inaugural group with Peña and Frank Mitchell because the group’s two coaches. Collectively, they took on the racism and prejudices of Fifties Texas and have become the most effective highschool golf groups within the historical past of Texas after they received the State Championship in 1957.

There Aren’t Many Films Concerning the Latino Battle for Equality in America

There are many films about the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, as they pertain to the African-American quest for equality and to cease systemic racism in the US. Films like Malcolm X, Selma, Mississippi Burning, and Loving are just some. Sadly, there are valuable few that deal with the plight of authorized Mexican-Individuals who lived in Texas and different states bordering Mexico in the course of the period earlier than Martin Luther King and the motion that basically took maintain within the early Sixties. The Lengthy Sport is a compelling movie that dedicates a worthy story to how real-life folks like Peña, Treviño, and others have been considered as lower than by a longtime and elitist white society. These are 5 good youngsters, and Pena has a noble pursuit to show that Mexican-Individuals have been each bit as succesful and gifted as their white counterparts. When the San Felipe Mustang golf group continues to win and strikes nearer to their objective of profitable the Texas State Championship, the viewers is presented a number of fist-pumping moments that make the two-hour funding extraordinarily worthwhile.

The Lengthy Sport is a worthwhile story in regards to the combat of marginalized minorities for equal rights, but it surely additionally incorporates a terrific interpersonal love story between Joe and the headstrong and good native lady Daniela Torres (Paulina Chávez). Joe has to prioritize what is really essential to him as he and his teammates discover continued success whereas he falls for the charms of Daniela. The 2 younger Hispanic actors have a plausible chemistry, and the subplot of their typically tumultuous relationship permits the viewer to see what life was like exterior the larger image of human rights and equality.

The Actual-Life Obstacles Have been So A lot Extra Than Simply A Sport

The combat for equality that these courageous youngsters and their coaches launched into was a few heck of much more than simply golf. It’s in regards to the American Dream and overcoming issues like poverty, illiteracy, and the ever-looming racism within the South. Workforce member Gene Vasquez spoke in regards to the litany of issues that have been stacked towards these youngsters of migrants in a 2023 SXSW premiere interview with Entertainment Weekly:

“It is a dream come true, solely in America, actually… We have been combating brutal poverty and brutal discrimination. Our dad and mom have been migrants; they have been illiterate, and we have been very poor. So, this was very thrilling for us as a result of we might take pleasure in caddying, making slightly cash, and studying play golf by mimicking the golfers. Then we obtained an thought: Let’s make our golf course. We began gathering all of the tools, and we began swinging.”

It’s a story that calls for the viewers check out not solely the Mustang golf group but additionally the very actual immigration points in the present day and the precise human beings concerned within the border disaster, which is a hot-button subject proper now.

The place Are the “Miracle Mustangs” Now?

In 2012, the “Miracle Mustangs” were inducted into the Latin American Sports Hall of Fame. On the movie’s finish, Quintana offers an epilogue detailing the place the real-life Mustangs and coaches Peña and Mitchell are actually. Joe Treviño, the chief and most gifted participant, determined towards pursuing golf as a profession and devoted his life to refurbishing golf golf equipment and giving golf classes. He handed away in 2014 on the age of 75 and is survived by two daughters and two sons. Gene Vasquez, portrayed by Gregory Diaz IV, additionally told Entertainment Weekly, “After so a few years, over 50 years, we lastly obtained slightly recognition,” he stated. “It’s extremely gratifying.” Per Texas Monthly, he beforehand taught in San Felipe public faculties and later labored in actual property. He handed away simply final yr at 83 years of age.

Felipe Romero “competed professionally in nationwide and worldwide golf mini-tours whereas additionally working as a bus conductor and teacher for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Houston.” Lupe Felan labored for the Marine Corps, then the California Division of Motor Autos. He reportedly performs golf daily. In response to Texas Month-to-month, Mario Lomas grew to become a caddie on the PGA Tour and later labored as a greenskeeper at a rustic membership however has reportedly misplaced contact with the group through the years.

The Lengthy Sport is out there to stream on Netflix within the U.S.

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