‘Stick’ is one more Apple TV+ comedy about sad dudes

If you crossed “Ted Lasso” with Woody Harrelson’s 1996 movie “Kingpin,” swapped in Owen Wilson and made the sport golf, you would probably get something like “Stick,” the 10-episode Apple TV+ comedy about a washed-up pro golfer trying to heal his psychic wounds by helping a teen prodigy live up to his potential. Underdog sports arc? Check. Feel-good moments? Yup. There’s naturally a traumatic backstory, some fond intergenerational ribbing and some mild growth. There are few surprises, in other words; “Stick” adheres so strictly to formula (while taking its own sweet time) that it’s more a vibe than a show.

Wilson, always a pleasure, plays Pryce Cahill (aka “Stick”), the divorced and depressed ex-golfer in question. Once the toast of the PGA tour, his career tanked after a personal tragedy and a mid-tournament meltdown — provoked by his rival Clark Ross (Timothy Olyphant) — which went viral. By the time the show begins, he’s spent at least a decade mired in defeat.

When he isn’t puttering around the trashed home his family once inhabited, Pryce drives his yellow, beat-up Corvette to work, where he upsells golf enthusiasts into buying pricier clubs. In his leisure hours, he casually cons folks with help from his old caddie Mitts (Marc Maron, quietly stealing scenes right and left). The scheme requires Pryce to golf badly, repeatedly torching his already tattered reputation and confirming how far he’s fallen.

If that sounds a little dark, it should. Pryce initially seems to share some DNA with self-loathing scoundrels such as Saul Goodman, the seedy lawyer Bob Odenkirk played on “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad.” He even has a cheesy motto — “the Pryce is right” — printed on his business card. So when Pryce first spots Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager), a Latino teenager with a godly swing who sneaks onto the driving range to get in some practice, we worry. Pryce’s offer to coach him, cover all costs, get the kid into the U.S. Amateur Championship and pay his mother, Elena (Mariana Treviño), $100,000 — when he has no cash — means he must be working an angle. Right?

Eh. Not really. “Stick,” created by Jason Keller, thematizes grief, but the show is tonally allergic to anything truly grim. This is ultimately a road trip series (directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who also directed “Little Miss Sunshine”). Wilson, whose charm is undeniable, mostly works in a register I would describe as subdued and wistful cheer. There’s some sadness, certainly, but he either can’t or won’t make an uglier side of Pryce visible. Like pretty much everyone else on “Stick,” including Pryce’s ex-wife Amber-Linn (a criminally underused Judy Greer), Pryce is nice. And surprisingly functional. And basically decent.

So is Santi, the “troubled” kid Pryce is coaching, whose athletic prowess is far more believable than his inner torment. Zero (Lilli Kay), the genderqueer bartender who joins the gang on the road, provides some welcome friction, but the two most interesting, grounded, believable performances in this show are Treviño’s Elena — the best-realized version of a certain kind of Latina woman I’ve seen since “One Day at a Time” — and Maron’s Mitts. Because their stories are marginal to the main plot, and therefore less constrained by formula, they get a few genuinely funny and surprising beats.

There’s nothing wrong with a feel-good sports comedy. And it isn’t necessarily an indictment that “Stick” is better at the feel-good part than the comedy part (the jokes are pretty corny). But the show’s sludgy pacing and overall bloat is a problem. “Stick” spends a lot of ponderous screen time justifying basic plot developments the viewer would be more than willing to grant from the jump.

It is a problem, too, that Santi, the wunderkind at the show’s center (technically), is frustratingly underwritten. His reactions seem less psychologically motivated than arbitrary, and his formative traumas get much less attention than Pryce’s. If that imbalance starts to make Santi feel suspiciously like a plot device, that early impression gets confirmed when a pivotal scene that could determine the future of his career proceeds without his input.

Fortunately, the world-building is better than the character-building, with appearances from golf legends including Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Keegan Bradley and Max Homa. And real broadcasters such as Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman turn up to narrate key scenes, which wouldn’t otherwise mean much to nongolfers.

Warmhearted, inoffensive TV has its place, and there’s plenty audiences might appreciate about “Stick” despite some predictable beats; stories about healing can bridge a lot of thematic incoherence. But for a show that talks a fair bit about when to take big swings — and when not to — “Stick” is disappointingly timid.

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“Stick”

Three episodes premiered Wednesday on Apple TV+.