Happy Gilmore 2 Surprises With These 12 Big Celebrity Cameos

Most Happy Madison projects come equipped with faces well-known in the Sandler world of comedy (e.g., Rob Schneider, Kevin James, Kevin Nealon, and the like) and those who are dipping their toes into his orbit. And Netflix’s long-awaited Happy Gilmore 2 is no different. In fact, there are arguably even more cameos than usual. Fortunately, the movie doesn’t quite overdo it the way, say, Zoolander 2 did. What follows is a list of all the big names who pop up in the film at one point or another, from sports (mostly golf) icons to big names in comedy to a few iconic musical artists.

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The ones who didn’t count are the ones that have full-on roles, e.g., Bad Bunny, Haley Joel Osment, and Benny Safdie. Also, anyone who was in the first film doesn’t count as a celebrity cameo (though, thankfully, just about everybody who could come back did come back).

1) John Daly

About 10 minutes in, we meet PGA pro John Daly’s “Uncle John Daly,” who is living in the Gilmore family’s beat-up garage. He’s wearing gaudy golf khakis and asks Happy if he wants to come down and watch Love Island. A few scenes later, we see Daly give Happy a fine enough pep talk to get back into golfing (using some terrible math in the process).

Considering Daly pops up sporadically throughout the film, this one might qualify more as a role instead of a cameo, but it’s still John Daly in a Happy Gilmore movie, so we’re giving him a pass. This is also a stand-in entry for all of the other PGA pros we see when Happy goes to the club for the first time, including Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus.

2) Andrew Santino, Bobby Lee, & Sean Evans

About 20 minutes into the film, there’s a montage scene where Benny Safdie’s Frank Manatee goes around promoting his idea for the future of golf. In the process, we see him simultaneously ripping on golf and displaying an all-around utter lack of knowledge about the game.

We also see him go on a few well-renowned shows. First, there’s the Bad Friends podcast, hosted by comedians Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee. But the best is when he goes onto Hot Ones, with Sean Evans and a bunch of increasingly hot chicken wings.

3) Jon Lovitz

We see Jon Lovitz pop up as a fellow player on the driving range where Happy is getting his game back. Happy’s ball is so powerfully projected that it turns Lovitz’s character into dust, to which Lovitz says, “Go back to your mo-bile home!”

He later falls off the second story of that driving range, yelling out, “Damn you, Happy Gilmore!” It’s always nice to see fellow SNL vets in Sandler projects. He looks out for his own. Rob Schneider also pops up later, belting out his iconic “You can do it!” line.

4) Travis Kelce

In the scene where Happy goes to the pro club for the first time, we meet all the pros playing themselves. We’re also introduced to a waiter, played by Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and Taylor Swift boyfriend) Travis Kelce.

Jack Nicklaus orders an iced to, to which the waiter asks, “Arnold Palmer?” While he clearly means if that brand would be okay, Nicklaus clarifies that, no, he’s not Arnold Palmer, he’s Jack Nicklaus. There’s then a scene of him firing Bad Bunny’s busboy Oscar Mejias (who then gets revenge on him when he goes to his Happy Place via some honey and a bear).

5) Marcello Hernandez

Just as Sandler often incorporates SNL vets from his era of the sketch comedy show, he’s also keen to incorporate modern-day players. For instance, Marcello Hernandez.

Hernandez pops up for a second as Esteban, whom Bad Bunny’s Oscar Mejias has brought on as his caddy. Happy informs Oscar that caddies do not, in fact, have caddies of their own. Oscar asks if Esteban can play, instead, to which Happy informs them both that he cannot, as this is a pro tournament, so they don’t let people play who have just wandered onto the course. Esteban proceeds to steal a cop’s cap and run away, cackling. Esteban pops up later, too, where he’s a target for Happy and his cohorts’ golf balls (it’s also revealed he’s Oscar’s cousin).

6) Margaret Qualley, Martin Herlihy, Eric André

Early in the film, when Happy is beginning to get back into the game, he goes on a foursome on a low-level course. The trio of players he joins is all played by familiar faces.

One is Margaret Qualley of The Substance fame, the other is professional prankster Eric André, and Saturday Night Live‘s Martin Herlihy, one of the Please Don’t Destroy trio (Ben Marshall and John Higgins also pop up as spectators cheering Happy on). Happy ends up drunkenly crashing a golf cart with, as one might expect, André screaming by his side.

7) Nick Swardson

Nick Swardson, a frequent Sandler collaborator, shows up in a flashback sequence. He plays Ben Daggett, the one player who has ever been able to hit a ball farther than Happy Gilmore.

Daggett had a torn ligament after a go-kart accident. This is revealed by Safdie’s Frank Manatee as he’s trying to recruit Shooter McGavin to get a procedure where the same ligament would be surgically torn. Much to McGavin’s, he sees it’s nuts and passes on the opportunity via some thrown scalding hot coffee.

8) Post Malone

Like in the original film, we are occasionally spoken to directly by real-life CBS Sports former sportscaster Verne Lundquist. He’s back in Happy Gilmore 2, alongside his (now recast) co-host, Jack Beard.

But Lundquist has a new co-host, too. That would be DJ Omar Gosh, played by rapper Post Malone (credited as Austin Post). This isn’t the first time Post has had a role in a major movie. He also had a cameo in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, had a role in Spenser Confidential, a cameo in Guy Ritchie’s Wrath of Man, and a brief part in 2024’s Road House, amongst others.

9) Steve Buscemi

The beginning of Happy Gilmore 2 has Happy’s life go from relatively smooth sailing to catastrophic with a single swing of the club. His wife, Virginia Venit (Julie Bowen) is struck by the ball and killed, which kicks off a series of events resulting in Happy moving himself and his five kids out of their suburban environment to a less pleasant neighborhood.

He’s greeted in that neighborhood by a neighbor played by Steve Buscemi, who is peeing in a mailbox with a big smile on his face. We see Buscemi again trying to mimic the dance moves of Vienna Gilmore (Sunny Sandler), Happy’s daughter, who is receiving a lesson on the Gilmore family’s front porch. Buscemi pops up towards the end, too, first getting in a fight with Happy’s kids and then watching Happy’s game with the next entry on our list.

10) Guy Fieri

When Safdie’s Frank Manatee gets his new-age, surgically altered players vs. regular players game going, he lands is lowered down to the platform with angel wings. Then after some squabbling between the two teams, Guy Fieri walks out and gets the game started.

Fieri (ostensibly playing himself) is the on-field announcer for the Maxi tournament. Along with appearing in person, he also pops up on digital screens every now and then.

11) Eminem

One of the film’s more highly publicized and anticipated cameos, Eminem does in fact show up in the third act as Donald Jr., whose father was played by the late, great Joe Flaherty in the previous film. Like his father, Donald Jr. yells out “Jackass!” just when Happy is about to nail a shot.

Things ended a little differently for Donald Jr. than they did for his father, though. Happy immediately confronts the younger Donald (who is hilariously dressed just like his father), then Happy’s four sons leap into the action, and they all toss him into a little man-made lake typical of golf courses. Unfortunately for Donald Jr., there’s a family of gators in there. So, we now have a movie where Eminem is devoured by gators while screaming “I don’t give a s**t!”

12) Kid Cudi

We see quite a bit of Ben Stiller’s Hal L. in Happy Gilmore 2. He’s gone from abusing the elderly to heading an Alcoholics Anonymous-like group called H.A.L.

But he hasn’t changed his ways; he’s still abusing people. It’s just, now, he’s making his “Alkies” do stuff like paint his house and clean his gutters. Little does he know, one of these “Alkies” is actually an undercover cop, and one of the two arresting FBI agents who leads the bust is played by Kid Cudi.