Five Mexican kids build their own golf course, then go on to win Texas title: ‘The Long Game’

The premise of ‘The Long Game’ seems like a Hollywood movie.

Five young Mexican Americans work as caddies in exclusive, white-only country club. They then build their own golf course in the brush country of South Texas.

Playing with inferior equipment, battling racism and getting no professional training, they do the impossible and captured the 1957 Texas High School Golf Championship against wealthy, all-white teams.

It is a true story brought to the big screen by director Julio Quintana, and inspired by the Humberto G. García book ‘Mustang Miracle.’

The Latino-led film, starring Jay Hernández and Dennis Quaid, arrives in theaters nationwide on April 12.

The movie also stars comedy legend Cheech Marín as ‘Pollo’ and American actor Brett Cullen with newcomers Julián Works as ‘Joe Treviño,’ Christian Gallegos as ‘Mario Lomas’, Gregory Díaz IV as ‘Gene Vásquez,’ Miguel Ángel García as ‘Felipe Romero,’ and José Julián as ‘Lupe Felan.’

Bringing the sports drama ‘The Long Game’ to the big screen included challenges like a low budget – a reported $7.1 million – but developed camaraderie on set that felt like a small family for Quintana.

Despite the challenges, Quintana said “what made it worth it was that we all believed in the story we were telling.”

“The story itself is what drew us all to it and why it was important and why we all pulled together to make it as good a film as we possibly could,” said Cullen, who portrays Judge Milton Cox. “I loved the film and it’s so full of heart and has a great message and, and it’s very entertaining.”

For actor José Julián, giving life to Lupe Felan was very exciting.

“There were so many challenges I had to overcome portraying Lupe because he was a very complicated person. And having this opportunity, you know, filled me with a lot of excitement and responsibility,” said José Julián.

For García, getting to know who Felipe Ramos was and learning about the story was incredible.

“Really honored to have played him and be a part of the Mustangs. We feel really happy to have told this story,” Garcia said.

García said he used to be a caddy and didn’t like golf a lot, but once he got the role, “we were fortunate enough to have coaches and play golf” and try to emulate the young Mexican American caddies.

“Those guys were so, so good at what they did. But we tried our best and, hopefully it shows on camera,” García said.

Prior to making the movie, José Julián knew nothing about golf. (Latinos make up 7.5% of golfers in the U.S.).

“And, after we finished shooting it, I became a complete golf nut,” he said.

Quintana said putting the young actors in the same room with Cullen, Quaid and Marin, “all my young guys can react off them. So, they don’t even really have to say advice, they just bring their craft. And it makes it way easier for all the younger guys to perform.”

“I think those kids are very talented and they came prepared,” Cullen said. “But I think having not senior but more seasoned veterans around also leads a good example to them, shows them a good example of how to behave on set and how to, you know, approach the work.”

A difficult subject

While the movie addresses the topics of discrimination and racism, Quintana said there were a couple things that he wanted to get across.

“I think part of it is I wanted to show the idea that, there are issues that the Latino community has dealt with in the past,” Quintana said. “I thought it was important to highlight what Latinos had gone through in the past.”

Portraying a person with views and bias against a certain group of people was not difficult for Cullen, who was born the year the events of the movie took place.

“My father was born in the 20s and grew up through the Great Depression, fought in World War II in the Pacific, was a Texas oil man. And it was easy for me, given not that he was a bad man at all, but his views were based on that conception or that view back then of that minorities were not as important as a white person,” Cullen said.

“My father wasn’t a racist in that regard, like, you know, calling people names and stuff, but he would use words at home that I found offensive. So, it was easy for me to kind of tap into that memory of my father,” Cullen said.

“I think it’s really important to talk about those difficult subjects,” Garcia said. “And I’m really glad that those subjects were in the movie so that we can have conversations about them.”