'The Hawk' Recap And Ending Explained: Will There Be A Season 2?

Netflix’s 2026 sports drama comedy series, The Hawk, follows in the footsteps of AppleTV’s 2025 production, Stick, as it presents a washed-up professional golfer trying to replicate his days of sporting glory. Lonnie ‘The Hawk’ Hawkins was once the top-ranked golfer in the world, until a devastating failure made him hang up his clubs. But now, he once again dreams of completing his unfinished business on the golf course, by winning the U.S. Open and achieving the illustrious career grand slam. The biggest catch, however, is that his son, Lance, is also a professional golfer competing in the same tournament.

Spoiler Alert

What is the show about?

The Hawk begins in the middle of a Korn Ferry tournament, which is a lower-ranked feeder series to the PGA, in which Lonnie ‘The Hawk’ Hawkins is a contender. The once incredibly famous golfer makes everyone wait as he arrives late, in quite hectic style, with his bus almost crashing into the entrance. Lonnie’s driver, Old Henry, is also his caddy, and despite their momentary fight about who is to blame for their tardiness, the two men have to work together on the course. It is Henry who guides and advises Lonnie about the shots to take and the clubs to use. Despite having returned to the sport seemingly just some time ago, Lonnie is still good enough to be the best in the feeder-series tournament. However, his impressive run in the competition is suddenly halted when Old Henry suffers a heart attack and dies on the spot.

The tragic loss of his best friend and caddy makes Lonnie reach out to his son, Lance, and his estranged wife, Stacy, neither of whom are particularly interested in talking to him. Seemingly not knowing what else to do, Lonnie drinks his grief away and focuses on building his golfing career instead of honoring his friend’s memory even for a day, meaning he is out in search of a new caddy. This is when he comes across a woman named Sam in the parking lot at a Walmart, who introduces herself as a mechanic-cum-fixer of all things. While her self-introduction, or rather her choice of words, is not convincing at all, a piece of advice given by Sam makes Lonnie think deeply. According to her, the best way to deal with a difficult or frustrating situation is by indulging in temporary merriment, and this resonates with the protagonist’s personality.

Thus, Lonnie appoints Sam as his new caddy, and it is not at all difficult to convince her, because of the easy money she is promised. Together, they travel to the nearest Korn Ferry tournament, and despite not having any idea about golf or its rules, Sam quickly turns into the kind of non-intrusive caddy that Lonnie needs. He keeps succeeding in the feeder tournaments to finally climb back up to the PGA level, and soon gets to participate in an invitational tournament. Although Lonnie is ecstatic about this success, the same cannot be said for Lance, who detests the idea of having to clash against his father. This feeling is not born of any respect or love between the father and son, but clearly because Lance fears that his father is still good enough to beat him fair and square.

What is Sam’s real identity?

In a very short time, Lonnie and his new caddy, Sam, develop a very strong bond of friendship, but unbeknownst to the protagonist, a man keeps following Sam everywhere she goes. This man is eventually revealed to be Sam’s father, a hardened criminal who leads his own gang. As becomes evident some time later, this gang is used to carrying out armed robberies and clearly gets involved in all sorts of criminal activities from time to time. Some time before she met and joined Lonnie on his golfing adventures, Sam had left her father’s gang, as she did not want to be a criminal anymore, and she finally found a purpose in life after becoming a caddy. Although she still owed money to her father, Sam did not want to return to working for him, and therefore did not want him to keep following her, promising to pay him back as soon as she got the remuneration promised to her by Lonnie.

However, when Lonnie takes a horribly selfish decision later on, during one of the PGA tournaments, it absolutely breaks Sam’s heart, and she decides to return to a life of crime, much to her father’s joy. As soon as the much more experienced and popular caddy of a different golfer becomes available for selection, Lonnie replaces Sam with the man, though still wanting her to stay on as his driver. Feeling let down and disrespected, Sam leaves and joins her father, and then becomes part of a heist at an underground gambling den in Las Vegas. It is by sheer luck that Lonnie ends up being at the place at the time of the robbery, as he is trying to get his drunk and drugged son, Lance, to quit gambling and leave the shady place.

By this time, Lonnie had realized his mistake in replacing Sam with a random caddy, for the latter was absolutely not a good fit for him. Moreover, it was only Sam who would willingly put up with Lonnie’s bizarre and mostly unfair demands, and he had realized this a little too late. Therefore, this chance encounter at the gambling den reunites the two, and both are very happy to see each other. But getting back together is not an easy task, as Sam’s father stands in the way and refuses to let her be a caddy anymore. For a moment, Lonnie seems to accept the decision as fate, and is about to leave the bar. However, his recent experiences in life had taught Lonnie to put up a fight for the people and things that matter to him, and so he finally fights back, promising that he won’t ever fire Sam again, or let her down. Ultimately, Lonnie chooses to keep Sam on as his caddy till the very end, unbothered by her criminal ties or her real identity as the daughter of a crime boss.

Why does Anton hate Lonnie so much?

One of the board members of the PGA Tour, Anton Floyd, is vehemently against letting Lonnie return to the premier level of golf, even though the latter has qualified fair and square. Anton admits that he would like to have Lonnie disqualified from all PGA tournaments right away, but doing so would make him look suspicious. While Lonnie’s professional rivalry had always been with another elite golfer named Golden Fisk, he does not even seem to notice or address the hatred that Anton has for him. The real reason for this animosity is revealed later on, as the two men are revealed to be related by blood.

Anton’s earliest memory is that of terrible heartbreak and grief, as his mother left their family and moved in with a neighbor, with whom she became pregnant as well. Turns out, Lonnie is the son of the same woman, from her second marriage, meaning that he and Anton are half-brothers. But instead of having feelings of brotherly love for Lonnie, Anton holds the protagonist responsible for his mother’s absence from his life, and therefore hates him. The animosity only increased later on, when both of them were promising and talented athletes during their teenage and early adulthood years. While Lonnie was making a name for himself in golf, Anton tried doing the same as a javelin thrower. 

Unfortunately, the city and its residents only supported Lonnie, and totally overlooked Anton, which once again made him develop a hatred for the protagonist. A few years later, Anton executed the most audacious act of his life, by walking up to a woman he found attractive and directly proposing to her. The woman, Olivia, accepted the proposal, and the two were married, but she did not turn out to be a very loyal wife. In the worst possible development, Olivia ended up cheating on her husband with Lonnie, during one of the PGA tournaments back when the protagonist was a hotshot. Even now, Olivia and Lonnie have a lot of sexual chemistry bubbling between them, and it is only because Lonnie wants to stay faithful to his estranged wife that they do not end up getting intimate once again. Thus, Anton absolutely hates Lonnie for trying to steal his wife from him, as the protagonist ends up becoming his rival in every aspect of life. It is no wonder that Anton tries to kill Lonnie in the end by impaling him with a javelin, but the latter is saved by Sam.

Had Lance been lying all along?

In the final rounds of the U.S. Open, Lonnie faces off against his old rival, Golden Fisk, as well as his own son, Lance, which is naturally an odd situation to be in. Nonetheless, Lonnie remains adamant on giving it his all to win the tournament and achieve the career grand slam. He has no intention of letting Lance win at all, even though his son has been going through a tough time in life after his fiancée left him and he got addicted to gambling again. But Lonnie gives his staunch resolution a second thought after Stacy informs him how Lance must win the U.S. Open in order to survive. Apparently, Lance had accrued a debt of 4 million dollars, and the people he had loaned the money from were dangerous criminals who had threatened to kill him if he did not pay back soon.

Even though Lonnie did not immediately want to step away and let his son win the U.S. Open, a tournament that he had desired to win for so long, he was convinced by Stacy to do so. Despite all her questionable decisions, Stacy always remained extremely loving and caring towards her son, which is why she wanted to protect him from the goons at all costs. While trying to convince Lonnie to let Lance win the tournament, she even went as far as using her estranged husband’s feelings for her to influence the matter. In the end, both she and Lonnie breathe a sigh of relief when the latter misses his shot and Lance automatically wins the tournament.

However, Lance soon reveals that he had been lying about the debt and the threat made to him by the lenders, meaning that he would not have been killed for the 4 million dollars, and did not need to win the tournament in order to survive. Out of every skill and ability that his father possessed, Lance was most impressed by Lonnie’s manipulative nature, and his ability to sell a lie convincingly. Therefore, Lance had picked up on this skill and perfected it, to convincingly execute his masterplan on both his parents. He had convinced them that he absolutely needed to win, knowing well that his mother would fight for him, and Lonnie would listen to her since he was desperate to get back together with her. While he had indeed accrued loans because of his gambling addiction, that too from criminals, they were not necessarily threatening to kill him. To make his story even more believable, Lance had paid two men from the criminal gang to come see him play during the tournament, so that their presence would make his parents believe that the gang was really after their son.

Did Lonnie really miss the shot on purpose?

In The Hawk’s ending, Lance wins the U.S. Open only because his father misses a shot from a very close range, and Lonnie pretends as if he had missed on purpose, to ensure that his son could repay his debts and stay alive. But the truth, as is evident from his reaction, is that Lonnie genuinely misses the shot, having tried to win the tournament and complete his career grand slam. Funnily enough, this miss is very similar to the one from many years back, which had led him down a spiral and upended his career as well as his personal life. This suggests that Lonnie is not meant to win the tournament, or that he is simply not good enough to achieve a career grand slam. This is definitely a lesson in humility for the overly competitive man, who now has to be happy with his son’s victory. In a sense, this resolution also keeps things fair, with Lonnie having genuinely lost to his son, while Lance is happy believing that his father intentionally missed the shot, since his main aim was to manipulate and dupe his father into believing his bogus story. 

Will the show return for a 2nd season?

Depending on the audience reception, Netflix might choose to bring back The Hawk for a 2ndseason, with Lonnie and his family once again at the center. Lonnie will surely want to continue his efforts to complete his career grand slam. At the end of the 1st season, he has already been invited to captain the American side in the Ryder Cup, meaning that he is very much going to continue playing golf. The win at the U.S. Open might inspire Lance to be a better golfer and stay away from gambling as well. Overwhelmed by all the developments, Stacy finally leaves her boyfriend, Radford, to return to Lonnie, meaning that the family is back together once again, which will surely lead to frustrating problems for each of the members, as they are highly dysfunctional together. Lastly, Sam stays on as Lonnie’s caddy, and she might bring more drama, maybe even criminal drama, if and when The Hawk returns with a 2nd season.

...