Will Ferrell’s ‘The Hawk’: Release Date, Plot, Cast, and Everything Else You Need to Know About Netflix’s Golf Show
Netflix is teeing up its next big comedy swing, and this time Will Ferrell is trading Ricky Bobby’s racecar for a set of golf clubs. On the back nine of his career, golf legend Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins chases one final major and drags everyone he loves into the chaos. The series marks Ferrell’s first foray into television comedy, and fans of his big screen antics are already buzzing about what a small screen version of his signature chaos might look like.
Netflix’s mysterious untitled golf comedy starring Will Ferrell lived in development limbo for years, sparking curiosity every time a casting update surfaced. Now the wait is finally over, with ‘The Hawk’ set to swing into homes everywhere this summer, bringing with it a mix of sports comedy tropes and unmistakably Ferrell brand absurdity.
Netflix’s Release Date for ‘The Hawk’
The Hawk is scheduled to premiere on Netflix on July 16, 2026. Netflix officially confirmed that all 10 episodes of ‘The Hawk’ would premiere worldwide on that date, with the announcement unveiled during Netflix’s Upfront presentation on May 13. The full season will be available to stream all at once, so there is no need to wait week to week for new episodes.
The Hawk is a 10 episode show following the life and career of a former elite golfer attempting to regain his magic, with Ferrell serving as creator, writer, executive producer, and lead actor. Binge culture continues to dominate Netflix’s release strategy, and dropping the entire season at once means viewers can marathon Lonnie’s chaotic comeback attempt in one sitting if they choose.
The project has had a long and winding road to the screen. It was originally announced in 2023 as a comedy series about a professional golfer who becomes the face of a controversial new league competing with the PGA Tour, with the series going through a title change and cast overhaul before finally landing on The Hawk in March 2026.
‘The Hawk’ Cast List Revealed
Netflix is getting into the sports comedy game with Will Ferrell leading the charge as Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins, a golf GOAT who wants to reclaim his glory by going back on the PGA Tour. Joining him is a roster of familiar comedic faces who have built careers on exactly this kind of oddball ensemble work.
Rounding out the cast are Molly Shannon, Jimmy Tatro, Fortune Feimster, Luke Wilson, Chris Parnell, Katelyn Tarver, and David Hornsby. Interestingly, Luke Wilson’s own brother Owen Wilson has his own golf comedy over on Apple TV with Stick, which means this summer is shaping up to be an unofficial battle of the golf siblings across streaming platforms.
Lonnie is bringing along his entire entourage in the series, including his son Lance, a pro golfer in his own right, his estranged wife Stacy, Lance’s fiancée and social media influencer Natalie, and his new caddie Sam. The show’s creative team is stacked as well, since Ferrell created ‘The Hawk’ alongside Harper Steele and Chris Henchy.
What Is the Plot of ‘The Hawk’
Lonnie Hawkins, 2004’s number one golfer, struggles on the back nine of his career to recapture his magic. His body says retire, but his heart says he’s not done yet. That internal conflict sits at the heart of the entire series, and it is exactly the kind of stubborn delusion that Ferrell has built a career playing to perfection.
His ex-wife and his son Lance, golf’s new golden boy, know he’s through. But with one more major to win to complete golf’s Grand Slam, Lonnie refuses to believe he’s anything other than one stroke away from the greatest comeback in golf history. It is a classic underdog sports setup, but one that gets filtered through a much stranger lens once Ferrell is involved.
The premise embraces the classic underdog sports formula but filters it through Ferrell’s signature absurdity, with impossible confidence, embarrassing public disasters, family rivalries, and spectacular swings that do not always end anywhere near the fairway. Former rivals Golden Fisk and Anton appear to return throughout the season and continue to cause Lonnie problems on his path back to the top.
Netflix’s own teaser leaned hard into that chaos. In the clip, Hawk shouts “Oh, Mama, I’m back!” as he hits a line drive straight into a bystander, only to backtrack with “Oh, I’m not back!” It is a small moment, but it tells you almost everything about the tone this series is going for.
Behind-the-Scenes of Will Ferrell’s Golf Comedy
The road to ‘The Hawk’ was not a smooth one. The project was originally titled Golf and was set to be co-created by Ferrell, Ramy Youssef, and Josh Rabinowitz, with Youssef starring alongside Ferrell before both he and Rabinowitz left the project in 2024 due to creative differences. Molly Shannon then joined the series in August 2025, followed by Jimmy Tatro, Fortune Feimster, Chris Parnell, Katelyn Tarver, and David Hornsby the following month.
The series marks Ferrell’s first television comedy, following a career built primarily on films like Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. That pivot to episodic storytelling gives Ferrell more room to stretch out Lonnie’s meltdown across a full season instead of cramming it into a two hour runtime.
Production companies behind the series include Gloria Sanchez Productions and T-Street, the same banners that have backed several of Ferrell’s prior comedic ventures. With a full ensemble cast, a stacked creative team, and a premise built entirely around one man’s refusal to accept reality, ‘The Hawk’ looks primed to be one of Netflix’s bigger comedy swings of the summer.
Do you think Lonnie Hawkins actually has one more major championship left in him, or is this comeback destined to end in complete disaster?
