Who would win the 'Bagger Vance' open?

By Mark Scheerer
CNN Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Who would top the leader board if the cast of the new, golf-themed movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance" hit the links for a golfing showdown?

Based on what the stars say about their games, the champion of such a hypothetical Tinsletown Tournament would likely be Will Smith -- perhaps because he has friends in golf's highest places.

• Matt Damon (Rannulph Junnah): A golfing neophyte before taking the starring role of a young golf champion in 1930s Savannah, Georgia, Damon took a crash course.

"It was a 30-day one-on-one with this guy named Tim Moss, down in Hilton Head, South Carolina," he says. "He basically molded me like a piece of clay."

The lessons apparently took.

"90's the best I've shot. But I haven't broken 90 yet. I had a putt to break 90 and I missed."

• Charlize Theron (Adele Invergorden): The lanky, South African-born actress took up golf while shooting "Bagger Vance" in Georgia last year. How good is she?

"Not very good, apparently," she says. "I consider myself very, very happy if I shoot 100. And I'm hearing that that's not very good."

• Robert Redford (Director): Once the proud possessor of a six handicap, Redford played golf from age 11 to his early 20s when he "got distracted with other things."

"I started a family, I came to New York, I was in the theater. I just lost interest in (golf) for 32 years -- until my son grew up and he started to play. I decided to pick it up again so I could play with him."

Shooting a golf movie, ironically, got in the way.

"I was doing, like, 14-, 16-hour days making this thing and I'm looking out (on the course) and I'm seeing Matt and Will -- I mean, Will must have played 250 holes of golf during this thing. I couldn't even get to the putting range. So, it was frustrating."

• Will Smith (Bagger Vance): He says while he was working on "Bagger Vance" his handicap was "13-ish." He shot a hole-in-one about eight months ago. And, oh yeah...he golfs with Tiger Woods.

"I was with Tiger probably about two months before the film finished and his instructor, Butch Harmon. I was taking a lesson from Butch, and he said, 'Look here -- I got my guy Tiger out there, y'know, taking over the world of golf and you're playing a caddy! Setting (blacks) back a hundred years!'"

But, Smith adds, "The film is really different. It's really not that kind of movie. Black folks hate those movies with 'Yessuh, Nossuh,' but it's definitley not that kind of film."

Smith says he's curious to see what Tiger thinks of the movie

"The Legend of Bagger Vance," rated PG-13, opens nationwide on Friday, November 3.

The Legend of Bagger Vance

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