‘The greatest job you could ever have’: A golf trip to Ireland is the setting for new film ‘Finnegan’s Foursome’

There’s a particularly poignant scene from the new golf movie, “Finnegan’s Foursome,” in which a pair of brothers played by Edward Burns and Brian d’Arcy James find themselves discussing the flaws of their deceased dad, a former PGA Tour pro who was constantly on the road during their childhood.

“If he was a heart surgeon or an airline pilot or was in the service, he would have been gone just as much,” James’ character points out. “But instead, he was a golf pro, and because of that, he gave us one of the greatest things in our lives, our love of the game.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that, but let’s say we didn’t have golf?” Burns’ character asks.

“But we do,” James’ character replies, “don’t we?”

There are four co-stars in “Finnegan’s Foursome,” but the true star is the game at the center of it. The film, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival before being released digitally on June 19, is a reminder that the most important golf tournaments aren’t the ones we watch on TV, but rather the ones we participate in with family and friends. In this case, it’s the Finnegan Cup, which is being contested for the first time since the family patriarch’s passing. (And, no, I’m not giving anything away that’s not shown in the movie’s official trailer.)

Burns, who also wrote and directed the film, only seriously picked up golf six years ago as an activity to do with his “golf junkie” dad after his mom passed away. But he quickly became “hooked” on the game.

“For two years I’m just taking lessons. I’m only watching YouTube instructional videos. I’m devouring anything I can read about golf. I just become obsessed to the point that my wife says to me, like, ‘So is this now, like, more important to you than your work?’ And that’s kinda where the light bulb went off,” Burns (“Saving Private Ryan,” “The Brothers McMullen”) says. “So I had to figure out how I could marry my two passions.”

Burns began working on a script while collecting jokes, stories and on-course barbs from people he’d play with. He said he wanted to create a movie that connected the recreational part of the game with the professional part and history, hence the character of his dad in the movie, played by Ian McEhlhinney. It was a part of the plot that resonated with James.

“ My dad was 50 when he passed away, and so I never really got a chance to have more time with him in life, let alone on the golf course,” James (“Spotlight,” “Shrek The Musical”) said. “So, this movie really hit home in a very particular way to me as well.”

What Burns hopes will resonate with golf fans is the authenticity of the on-course scenes shot mostly at C arne Golf Links, which he calls one of his “favorite spots on the planet,” and which Golf Digest ranks among the World’s 100 Greatest Courses. Burns says he watched and studied every golf movie ever made, and while he says “Tin Cup” is his favorite, he thinks “The Greatest Game Every Played” captures the golf moments the best.

“The reason ‘Hoosiers’ is such a great film is that they shot the hoop really well,” says Burns, who also manages to work a nice homage to his beloved New York Knicks into the movie. “And you’ve seen other basketball movies or sports movies where they didn’t get it right.”

With the action taking place between a family of recreational golfers, no one’s swing had to look tour quality. However, Burns didn’t want the crew to look like hacks, either.

”I had to reconcile the fact that Brian d’arcy James and I have lousy swings if your father was a golf pro, right? However, I have a ton of friends whose parents are professional musicians and they’re lousy musicians,” Burns says. “And they said, part of it is, depending on your relationship with your old man, you either embrace what they do or you kind of reject it.”

Finnegans Foursome

Rival brothers played by James (left) and Burns (right) travel to Ireland to honor their deceased father, who was a PGA Tour player. What results is a week of unexpected family bonding through golf.

Stu Teehan

Brian Muller, a long-hitting 10-handicap who plays Burns’ son, had the least brushing up to do with his game. Having previously worked with Burns before, his part was literally written for him a few years before when they played during the filming of the series “Bridge and Tunnel.”

“Ed saw me hit the ball and told me right then and there, ‘I have this golf movie I’m about to write. You’re gonna play my son, and we’re gonna shoot it in Ireland,’” Muller (“The Good Wife,” “Chicago PD”) says. “All my friends told me not to believe him. ‘It’s Hollywood,’ they said. ‘People make empty promises all the time.’ But two years later we were in Ireland shooting the film. That’s who Ed is.”

Muller doesn’t anticipate ever having a dream job quite like this again—unless there’s a sequel—and he appreciated Burns’ commitment to making the golf scenes realistic.

“It was important for all of us to get it right, which is why we shot as many real shots as possible,” Muller says. “It’s also a movie about the regular golfer so it has plenty of bumps and bruises as well.”

That process was even more involved for actress Erica Hernandez, who plays James’ daughter, and didn’t know what a bogey was before filming started.

“It was definitely a crash course,” said Hernandez, another “Bridge and Tunnel” alumni. “I started consuming everything golf-related I could.”

Here’s an exclusive clip from the movie:

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Hernandez (“Jury Duty,” “True Lies”) developed a very passable swing thanks to Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher Alison Curdt and a coach in Ireland named Liam McCool. Burns compared the process to having to learn the choreography of dancing or fighting, so he advised Curdt to have Hernandez focus on learning the movements and sequence of the swing for two months without worrying about hitting a ball.

“Luckily the magic of moviemaking was on my side, so on the physical end Ed had me focus on making sure my swing looked good first,” Hernandez says. “I’m glad all that time practicing the twist in front of a mirror paid off. I started training in earnest a few months before filming, and we filmed for about five weeks all in. I think by the end I can confidently say I could play a real, albeit slow, game on my own and know how.”

The movie’s secret sauce, however, comes from the close relationships among the cast that led to playful on-screen—and on-course—banter. Burns says his biggest challenge was getting the audience to care about a family golf tournament, but that was made a lot easier by the actors seemingly caring about each other—and being comfortable to needle each other during the tournament scenes.

“If that was my first film with him, I would have been so respectful to Ed because I don’t know how he does it all,” says James, who was appearing in his fifth film with Burns. “But the fact that we’ve had some miles on our odometer, it was a natural thing to be able to kind of get in there and throw some elbows. Familiarity definitely breeds contempt in this case, in all of the best ways.”

And like the characters in “Finnegan’s Foursome,” the actors who played them also learned that golf is a gift that keeps on giving.

“ You could imagine this was the greatest job you could ever have,” Burns says. “Anytime you get green lit, that is a gift and you gotta show real gratitude for that, because it’s impossible to get these small indie movies made. To work with a bunch of your friends, and then on our days off, or even sometimes if we wrapped early, we’d grab our bags and go play nine until the sun went down. And the nice thing is in the summer in Ireland, the sun doesn’t go down until late at night. So, we got a shit ton of golf in.”