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Golf Fans React to Real-Life Happy Gilmore Officially Signing With College Program

The future Ball State golfer is already a minor celebrity.

Patrick Andres

Golf Fans React to Real-Life Happy Gilmore Officially Signing With College Program
Golf Fans React to Real-Life Happy Gilmore Officially Signing With College Program /

Finding memorable names in sports has become something of a cottage industry—for instance, the Western Hockey League draft in Canada is put under the microscope every year for its glut of Bradens, Jadens, and other rhyming name constructions.

However, you will likely not find any name in sports more appropriate than the one Ball State officially added to its men’s golf program Wednesday afternoon.

On National Signing Day, the Cardinals formally announced the signing of one Happy Gilmore of Bloomington, Ind.

You read that correctly.

As Ball State’s release recounted, Gilmore earned his nickname “when he won a long drive competition at the Pepsi Little People’s Golf Tournament around the age of nine.”

The Cardinals’ signing left the golf world laughing and quoting the 1996 Adam Sandler film of the same name.

Many noted Ball State’s graphic’s obvious reference to the movie’s poster.

Gilmore was presented as humorous evidence of the Jungian idea that people tend to wind up in professions associated with their names.

The golfer himself—presumably used to people gawking at his nickname—chose to focus on his future home.

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Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .

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