From the Rough review: inspiring golf story about a woman coach

From the Rough stars Taraji P. Henson as Tennessee State University golf coach Catana Starks. Starks was the first woman to coach golf at TSU and led a team of misfit golfers to the championship. This is a true story.

From the Rough begins with Coach Starks coaching the women’s swimming team. A new Athletic Director, Kendrick Paulsen Jr. (Henry Simmons), is hired and told he has to diversity sports. A golf team would be one of those efforts.

The minute Paulsen and Coach Starks meet each other there is tension. When she hears about the golf team, she asks to coach it. He doesn’t want her but is forced to take her. So he gives her nothing – no scholarship money, no decent clubs, no support of any kind.

Catana outsmarts him in just about every way. He considers this insubordination and is even less inclined to help her.

Roger (Michael Clarke Duncan) plays a custodian who can talk sense to power and helps Coach Starks get what she needs.

She puts together a team of misfit outsiders. Only one of them is Black, and TSU is a historically black university. The Black golfer is Craig (Robert Bailey Jr.). He’s actually a great golfer. Edward (Tom Felton) is English, possibly a criminal, and immediately attracted to Coach Starks swim star Stacey (LeToya Luckett).

Ji-Kyung (Justin Chon) is South Korean but has been living in LA and thinks he’s a gangster. Cameron (Paul Hodge) is Australian and has absolutely no life other than golf. Bassam (Ben Youcef) came from France but insists he’s Algerian. His struggle as an Algerian in France is very similar to Coach Starks struggle as a Black woman in the U.S.

The team is terrible at first, but since this film is about the inspiring Coach Starks you can probably predict that they get better. In fact they are so good, A.D. Paulsen finally has to apologize in public to Coach Starks for not believing in her.

I watched this movie on Tubi. It’s also on Pluto and Prime Video. The film was released in 2013.