Bringing it all Back Home

​New Film, “Seven Days in Utopia,” is a Glorious Tribute To Golf, Texas and Faith

“ Golf—like life—is all about finding the sweet spot,” author David Cook told a group of reporters before a special screening of the new movie, “Seven Days in Utopia,” Aug. 4 at Boot Ranch. “I found mine while on the driving range at the Utopia Golf Course in 2004. That led to the writing of this book [Golf’s Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia] and eventually making it into a movie.”

Cook, it seems, has had a lot of practice in simplifying his life and passing that knowledge on to others through his roles as a professor, a sports physiologist and a man of faith.

Like Cook’s book, “Seven Days in Utopia” is about faith and the gumption to follow your heart.It’s the story of Luke Chisolm, a talented young golfer intent on a career playing on Tour. When his first big chance to prove himself turns into a very public disaster, Chisolm escapes the pressures of the game and finds himself unexpectedly stranded in Utopia, a real-life town of less than 400 folks, some 80 miles from San Antonio, where he meets eccentric rancher Johnny Crawford.

But Crawford is more than meets the eye, and his profound ways of looking at life force Chisolm to question not only his past choices but his direction for the future.

Crawford’s unusual method of teaching golf incorporate fishing, painting and flying to enforce critical aspects of the game, from a confidence building, pre-shot checklist to lessons on instinct over intellect, truth over tradition, excellence over acceptance and expecting the unexpected.

The character of Luke Chisolm is played by Lucas Black, of “Friday Night Lights” and “Sling Blade” fame, while iconic Academy Award-winner Robert Duvall is seamless and right at home in the role of Johnny Crawford. “Seven Days in Utopia” also stars Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo, Deborah Ann Woll, Brian Geraghty, Jerry Ferrera, Joseph Lyle Taylor and Kathy Baker.

PGA Tour stalwart K.J. Choi is cast as Chisolm’s antagonist (Choi’s name in the movie is T.K. Oh, aka The Lion, the world’s best player), but he doesn’t have any speaking lines. The film is chock-full of other PGA Tour players, including Ricky Fowler, Rich Beem and Stewart Cink; and Golf Channel broadcasters Brandel Chamblee and Kelly Tilghman are prominent playing themselves.

“Making this movie was like a blood-bath,” Cook said. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.The process is exacting and arduous; more than 29 hours of film was shot for us to have a movie that’s less than two hours. We were fighting to maintain the integrity of the story working through one slow scene at a time.”

The movie stays true to the basic message of Cook’s book, but does introduce several new characters, including a love interest for Luke, and fleshes out a backstory for Johnny, who, it ends up, was once a player on Tour himself.

Moviegoers and golf fans will be impressed by the fact that Black, a scratch golfer from Missouri, can really move the ball like a professional. “We wanted to make sure we had that realism in the movie, to add that legitimacy,” Cook said. “Lucas has more ability than Kevin Costner (“Tin Cup”), Matt Damon (“Legend of Bagger Vance”) and Jim Caviezel (Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius) combined.”

The 80-year-old Duvall said he was drawn to the character and the movie by his love of sports and the overall meaning “Seven Days in Utopia” provides. “It’s a movie with a nice underlying message,” Duvall said. “To work with Lucas and to see an actor in a golf movie who can actually hit the ball sealed the deal for me. At the end of the day, it is a good family movie.”

There was a golf professional on site during the filming of the golf-related scenes, and Emil Hale, Boot Ranch’s director of golf, actually hit a few of the shots that were used in the movie. Duvall is also shown swinging the club several times in scenes that were filmed at the actual Utopia Golf Course.

“My character didn’t really require much on camera play,” Duvall said. “I portray a man who is primarily knowledgeable in the sport, so minimal help with my swing approach was needed. Mostly, I just went with my instincts.”

Cook said that during time off in the film’s schedule, Duvall would grab a 5-iron and head to Boot Ranch’s expansive practice facility to hit some Shots. “If you were just watching him swing and not looking at where the shots were going, you had a feeling that he was athletic and a pretty good golfer,” Cook said.

“My history as an athlete is mixed,” Duvall added. “A funny story: I was a fair athlete when it counted, but when it didn’t count, I won the first superstars competition for actors.”

The Texas Hill Country and Boot Ranch—the exclusive golf community outside Austin—are glowingly portrayed in the film. There are several shots of the flowing Guadalupe River, rolling meadows and tree-lined fields. One breathtaking scene is filmed on top of a mesa overlooking the Guadalupe valley. The entire film was shot in Utopia and Fredericksburg, and the village scenes are actually a real street in old town Fredericksburg.

If there is one golf scene in the movie that steals the limelight, it’s when the fabulous downhill 364- yard 10th hole at Boot Ranch is shown, where twin 40-foot waterfalls cascade into a pond at the front of the green complex. In the movie, the hole is played as the risk-reward 18th, and the decision to go for the putting surface off the tee, or play it safe with an iron to the fairway, is a central plot theme.

“Seven Days in Utopia,” with its message of SFT (see it, feel it, trust it) and of faith in a higher power and oneself, premiered in Atlanta Aug. 8 at the PGA Championship and opens in more than 500 theaters on Labor Day weekend. Cook hopes the film will “inspire young people to think differently about golf and faith.”