Banning (film)
Encyclopedia
Banning is 1967 film directed by Ron Winston and starring Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

, Jill St. John
Jill St. John
Jill St. John is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Tiffany Case, the lead Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever.-Early life:...

, Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...

, Guy Stockwell and James Farentino. Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

 and Bob Russell
Bob Russell (songwriter)
Sidney Keith "Bob" Russell, was an American songwriter born in Passaic, New Jersey.In 1968, Russell along with songwriting partner Quincy Jones was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Original Song category...

 were nominated for an Academy Award for the song, "The Eyes of Love."

Plot

Mike McDermot (Wagner) is a rising golf star on the PGA Tour
PGA Tour
The PGA Tour is the organizer of the main men's professional golf tours in the United States and North America...

 until he is accused of cheating. He supposedly has offered to split a winner's purse with a competitor, Jonathan Linus (Guy Stockwell
Guy Stockwell
Guy Harry Stockwell was an American actor who appeared in nearly 30 movies and 250 television series episodes....

), if his opponent deliberately misses a final putt. In fact, the competitor is the one who approached him. McDermot refuses, so Jonathan Linus goes to another pro, Tommy Del Gaddo (Hackman), whose glory days were behind him. Then they turn in McDermot, accusing him of their crime.

Linus retires from the PGA Tour and marries into a rich family. His wife (Susan Clark
Susan Clark
Susan Clark is a Canadian actress, possibly best-known for her role as Katherine on the American television sitcom Webster, on which she appeared with her husband, Alex Karras.-Personal life:...

) is the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

; through their money, they are now principals (President and General Manager) of an exclusive golf club, the El Presidente. Del Gaddo becomes the head pro at the club as reward for supporting Linus in winning the Eastern Open.

McDermot, now calling himself Mike Banning, arrives and threatens to expose them, so he is given the assistant pro's job to quiet him. Banning proceeds to lure the club's high rollers to stage a high-wager golf tournament, a Calcutta, in which two-man teams are auctioned off. All money is then put in a pot and split three ways between the teammates and their bidder.

Banning must win this tournament to make enough money, $21,000, to pay off the mob, which had bankrolled his trial on the PGA Tour. He is literally playing for his life (and that of his dentist who actually took out the loan).

Banning knows the club pro cheats; he plays high-stakes poker, appearing drunk on whiskey while actually drinking iced tea. Another local aristocrat, Angela Barr (St. John), wins the highly competitive bidding for Banning's team over the President's daughter. The president knew of Banning's background and had his daughter bid for him for what he was sure would be the winning team.

Before play proceeds, Chris Patton (James Farentino
James Farentino
James Farentino is an American actor. He has appeared in almost one hundred roles, among them in The Final Countdown, Jesus of Nazareth, and Dynasty.-Career:...

) tells the organizing committee that Banning is a former pro. Banning ends up giving up his handicap of 5 to play at scratch. He is informed that Patton provided this information and gets into a fight with him, almost killing him. Patton withdraws from the tournament and is replaced by Linus, now playing with his father-in-law, J. Pallister Young (Howard St. John
Howard St. John
Howard St. John was a Chicago-born character actor who specialized in unsympathetic roles. His work spanned Broadway, film and television...

).

The tournament comes down to a sudden-death playoff, just as had happened in the ill-fated attempt to bribe Banning on the tour. On the 17th hole, with a life-saving shot, Banning makes a near impossible shot over a tall stand of trees.
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