The Hawk Trailer — Will Ferrell Golf Comedy Hits Netflix July 16
- Jul 12
- 3 min read
The Hawk trailer has officially landed, and it delivers exactly what fans hoped for when word first spread that Will Ferrell was making his first true television comedy. The Netflix series stars Ferrell as Lonnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, a washed-up professional golfer who refuses to accept that his best days are behind him. With the full trailer now racking up views ahead of the show's premiere, anticipation is building fast for what could be the streaming comedy event of the summer. All 10 episodes arrive on Netflix on July 16.
For a performer who has built an entire career on delusional, big-hearted competitors — from Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights to Chazz Michael Michaels in Blades of Glory — the role of Lonnie Hawkins feels like a homecoming. The premise is classic Ferrell: with one more major victory needed to complete golf's career Grand Slam, Lonnie refuses to believe he is anything other than one stroke away from the greatest comeback in golf history. Everyone around him sees a man well past his prime. Lonnie sees destiny.
The trailer leans into that gap between self-image and reality. We see Ferrell's Hawk strutting fairways with unearned swagger, delivering motivational speeches nobody asked for, and grinding through a comeback attempt that seems equal parts inspiring and delusional. It is the kind of tightly-wound sports ego Ferrell has skewered brilliantly before, now given ten full episodes of runway to develop rather than a single film's runtime.
What separates The Hawk from a standard sports spoof is the pedigree behind it. The series was created by Ferrell alongside longtime collaborators Harper Steele and Chris Henchy, the team responsible for some of his most beloved work. Steele and Ferrell recently earned acclaim for their documentary Will & Harper, and Henchy co-wrote The Other Guys and Eastbound & Down-adjacent comedy projects that defined a generation of sports satire.
The production roster runs even deeper. Rian Johnson, the filmmaker behind Knives Out and The Last Jedi, executive produces through his T-Street banner with Ram Bergman and Nena Rodrigue. Jessica Elbaum and Alix Taylor produce for Ferrell's Gloria Sanchez Productions, with David Gordon Green and Andrew Guest also on board. That is an unusually stacked creative bench for a half-hour comedy, and it signals Netflix sees The Hawk as a major swing.
The supporting cast is loaded with comedy veterans. Molly Shannon, Ferrell's longtime Saturday Night Live castmate, co-stars, marking another reunion for two of the most reliable comic actors of their era. Jimmy Tatro, who stole scenes in American Vandal, joins alongside Fortune Feimster, Luke Wilson, Chris Parnell, Katelyn Tarver, and David Hornsby of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame.
Notably, the PGA TOUR is an official partner on the series, which suggests The Hawk will feature real tournaments, real courses, and possibly cameos from actual professional golfers. That partnership gives the show a layer of authenticity that most sports comedies never get, and it mirrors the approach that made shows like Eastbound & Down and Happy Gilmore's recent sequel resonate with sports fans as much as comedy audiences.
Golf comedy has a storied history, from Caddyshack to Happy Gilmore, and Netflix is clearly betting the genre still has legs. Last summer's Happy Gilmore 2 proved the appetite is enormous, becoming one of the platform's biggest film launches. The Hawk arrives as the natural next step: a serialized golf comedy with a movie star lead, prestige producers, and the sport's official blessing.
Early fan reaction to the trailer has been enthusiastic, with the official Netflix upload drawing over half a million views in its first two weeks and the earlier teaser topping 800,000. Comment sections are filled with comparisons to Ferrell's classic sports roles and predictions that Lonnie Hawkins could join the pantheon of great Ferrell characters. The consensus: nobody plays confident failure better.
The timing of the July 16 premiere is smart, landing just after The Open Championship week when golf is at the center of the sports conversation. Netflix has increasingly aligned its sports-adjacent programming with the real sporting calendar, a strategy that paid off with its Full Swing documentary series, which turned casual viewers into golf fans and vice versa.
For Ferrell, The Hawk represents a career milestone: despite decades of dominance in film and his legendary SNL run, he has never led a scripted television comedy series until now. At 58, he is betting that the streaming era's appetite for character-driven comedy is the perfect stage for one more big swing. Based on the trailer, that bet looks like it is going to pay off.
All 10 episodes of The Hawk premiere globally on Netflix on July 16, 2026. Watch the official trailer below and judge for yourself whether Lonnie "The Hawk" Hawkins has one more major in him — or whether the comeback is all in his head. Either way, it looks like a tee time worth keeping.
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