‘The Hawk’ Season 1 Review: Will Ferrell Tees Off on Netflix, But Does the Swing Actually Connect

Will Ferrell steps into his first ongoing television comedy with ‘The Hawk’, a ten episode Netflix series about a washed up golf legend trying to claw his way back to relevance. The premise is simple enough. Lonnie Hawkins was the number one player in the world back in 2004, a three time major winner who let it all slip away, and now he wants one final Grand Slam before his body and his ego both give out completely.

Molly Shannon plays Stacy, his estranged wife who has thrown herself into a canned cocktail brand, and Jimmy Tatro plays Lance, his son and current rival on tour. Fortune Feimster rounds things out as Sam, a scrappy new caddie Lonnie recruits almost on a whim. Luke Wilson also shows up as a smug rival golfer, and the roster of familiar faces keeps growing from there.

Once the actual episodes get going, it becomes clear that ‘The Hawk’ has more ambition than discipline. There is a real show buried somewhere in these ten episodes, one about fathers and sons, faded glory, and what it costs to keep chasing a dream that has clearly moved on without you.

Instead the series keeps piling on new characters and dangling subplots almost every episode, an influencer fiancée here, a tour board conspiracy there, until the central story gets buried under its own clutter.

What actually works is the relationship between Lonnie and Sam. Feimster brings a lived in warmth to a character who could have easily been a punchline, and her scenes with Ferrell have a scrappy, unforced chemistry that the rest of the show keeps chasing and rarely catches. Shannon is doing everything she can with Stacy too, finding little flickers of real hurt underneath a character who mostly gets written as loud and combative.

The bigger issue is Lonnie himself. Ferrell has always thrived playing overgrown man children, but the best versions of that character usually have some charm buried underneath the selfishness. Lonnie spends long stretches of the season being genuinely hard to root for, and the show never quite decides whether it wants us laughing at him or with him, which makes some episodes feel like they are stalling rather than building toward anything.

The tonal wobble extends to the comedy itself. Some scenes land with the kind of loose, silly energy that made Ferrell a comedy staple in the first place, particularly anything involving Lonnie’s oddball pregame rituals or his one sided pep talks to golf balls. Other stretches feel padded, like sketch ideas stretched well past their natural length just to fill out a ten episode order that probably should have been six.

Visually the show captures the specific absurdity of professional golf culture well, all pastel polos, sponsor logos, and manicured fairways hiding genuine cutthroat ambition underneath. The production clearly had real access to tour level golf environments, and that authenticity gives even the weaker episodes something to look at. It just never quite becomes the satire of sports culture and legacy that the setup seems to promise.

By the time the season wraps up, ‘The Hawk’ has built toward a finale that hits some genuine emotional notes between Lonnie and his son, even if it takes a scattered route to get there. There is a better, tighter show inside this one, and you can feel the cast working hard to drag it out into the open.

I came away from ‘The Hawk’ entertained in stretches and mildly frustrated in others, the kind of show that earns real laughs from its supporting cast even while its lead character tests your patience. Feimster and Shannon are legitimately worth the watch, the golf world satire has real potential, and Ferrell still commits fully even when the material around him sags. Weighing the strong supporting turns against the overstuffed plotting and a protagonist who takes too long to become likable, I am landing on 6 out of 10.

Did ‘The Hawk’ win you over or leave you wanting a mulligan, let me know in the comments where you landed.