In Stick, AppleTV+’s new comedy from Jason Keller, much is made of the difference between playing golf the smart way versus a more high-risk, high-reward style. The implication is that there is a time for both. Too much of one, and you end up a competent but boring player who never achieves glory. Too much of the other, and you’re a thrill to watch. Unfortunately, you’ll end up in the sand at least as often as you hoist the trophy. This show, which several—not this guy—have tried to crown the next Ted Lasso, has a tagline implying it is swinging away. The truth is its game is mostly playing for par.

That’s a harsh opener, for sure, and paints a perhaps less charitable portrait of the series than intended. Stick is a good hang. It has a light, bouncy energy that makes it very easy to like. Simultaneously, it deals with issues like parental abandonment, spousal and child death, and the general death of the life you thought you would live in a way that feels appropriately weighty. There wasn’t an episode that ended with this writer feeling as though he wasted his time watching it. But that’s not the same as shooting an eagle.

There was a time when all Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) knew was scoring eagles. He was one of the best on the PGA tour, with a swing that earned him the nickname Stick. And he did it all with his best friend and caddy Mitts (Marc Maron). At home, things were going great, too, as his marriage to Amber-Linn (Judy Greer) thrived. Then, personal tragedy struck. In short order, Pryce detonates his entire life, his career going last thanks to an on-course meltdown followed by a locker room brawl with rival Clark Ross (Timothy Olyphant).

In the present day, Cahill is little more than a golf shop hustler, convincing rubes to buy the most expensive clubs so they can better believe their delusions of being some undiscovered talent. Amber-Linn, now his ex, has spent years prodding him to move out of the house they once shared so she can sell it and finally eliminate the final physical reminder of their failed commitment. At night, he and Mitt run scams on bargoers who throw down cash to see Pryce repeatedly prove he’s not the golfer he once was. It is only when Pryce accidentally witnesses high schooler Santiago “Santi” Wheeler (Peter Dager) at the driving range that he finally re-engages in life. Before long, he’s convinced Mitts, Santi, and Santi’s mom, Elena (Mariana Treviño), to hit the road in the hopes of making the teenager a golf sensation.

Like the sport itself, there’s an agreeably languid pace to the series. While covering plenty of ground—both geographically and plotwise—nothing about Stick feels rushed or chaotic. Unlike golf, the series is never a boring watch though. (Sorry, golfheads, even in middle age, I’ve yet to develop an appreciation for the televised “good walk spoiled”.) There’s enough friction to keep things interesting and introduce some tension into the season, even though it rarely does anything unexpected.

However, with that tension comes some of the show’s biggest missteps. Take, for example, Zero (Lilli Kay). Zero’s a bartender at the first course Santi attempts to conquer. They quit the job rather spectacularly when some gross patron can’t keep his hands to himself, and the country club boss won’t defend his employee. Before long, Zero joins the team as a kind of Santi-whisperer, even as romantic feelings begin to flourish between the two.

The problem with Zero isn’t Kay. She (the character goes by she/they pronouns; Kay uses she/her) plays Zero with a remarkably open face and a paper-thin shell that audiences can anticipate cracking from the moment she joins the journey. The problem is with how the show treats her—and Santi significantly less so—as the locus of a bundle of “kids these days” jokes. When you still have characters grousing about a character being a vegetarian, the material needs a good polish. It does reach a strong moment in a scene between her and Maron at a bus station, but overall, the premise is flawed. Worse, it is hack. It is long past time to give the “this generation is SO sensitive” joke construction a break.

More confounding is how Stick jokes about Zero’s gender fluidity. There are about four too many jokes trying to puzzle out the complexities of Zero’s using they/them pronouns. The good news is there is nothing malicious about them. The bad news is there isn’t anything funny. So why have them? If the show doesn’t have an axe to grind—it genuinely seems on the right side of this as it does treat Zero as valid—and it doesn’t have anything funny to say, why not just let the whole thing be? The gags don’t bring Zero into clearer relief, certainly. They also don’t much define Mitts and Pryce, who seem otherwise progressive and abandon their “confusion” with little to no effort.

At least the show seems to have a clear idea of who Zero is, though. The same can’t be said for Olyphant’s Ross. The actor manages to bang the character into a sort of shape, but the scripting does him no favors. Is he a monster who mocked Pryce about his tragedy when the character was at his lowest moment? Is he an arrogant, mediocre talent spending years trading on breaking a fellow golfer who was already in pain? Or is he maybe a little slick but essentially harmless dude worthy of the kind of forgiveness that amounts to a shrug? The show wants him to be all that at once, a mess of a choice.

If one really wants to compare Stick to Ted Lasso, this is a moment of stark difference. Lasso might reach for the same “bygones are bygones” result, but the emotions feel more validated and honest beforehand. This resolution treats some truly heinous behavior as equivalent to a long-ago misunderstanding. It’s especially bizarre as, before the forgiving, Ross revisits that earlier incident and seemingly doubles down on it, a wolfish smile on his impossibly handsome face.

So, Stick has its problems.

What saves it is the character interactions that work, chiefly Wilson and Maron’s oil and water chemistry and Treviño’s rapport with pretty much every other character. Wilson is a ball of charisma who doesn’t shy away from giving the audience a glimpse of his broken pieces. A late-in-the-season episode that mostly unfolds in his head is the series’ high point. It’s a heartbreaking “what if…” that succeeds in part because the dream of his life is so achingly average. Wilson makes it feel honest.

To return to the golf terminology, Stick has good course vision but needs to work out its short game if it wants to be great.

Stick is on the bag and set to walk the course at AppleTV+ starting June 4.

Stick Trailer: