MovieChat Forums > Caddyshack (1980) Discussion > Could never figure out why Ty was worrie...

Could never figure out why Ty was worried about losing.


Its odd, because throughout the film, he is a guy who has a devil may care attitude towards life and money. The bet went to 80 grand each, sure (But by the stage where Ty was worried to Danny about losing, it was still 40 thousand) The dude has a number of uncashed checks of 70 and 50 thousand dollar checks just lying around his home and with more around. He obviously seemed like Golf was not that all important to him since he just played for fun and not scored. So where did his worry of losing come from?

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poor writing? I thought the same thing though about Ty.

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Good god, first off it's a comedy. You don't analyze a movie like this. Secondly, he didn't want to lose to Smails because he hated him and his father never liked him either as Ty says earlier in the film. Smails gloated all the time and maybe he did something to Ty's dad if you want to look into the film that deeply.

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"To me winning isn't, you do!"

What's so hard to understand about that?

--I'm gonna drink some Bailey's and unwind.--

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"To me winning isn't, you do!" - Ty Webb

By this point in the story we have truly found out his hatred of the Judge so he is desperate not to lose to him.

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Ty liked Danny and thus wanted him to succeed. He was more worried about Danny losing than anything else.

Kid on bike "Where you going?"
Charlie Bright "Somewhere".

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I agree reecetonks. By this point of the match, Danny took over for Al, and he wasn't gonna get the scholarship. If they won, Ty and Al would give him a share of the winnings so he could then afford to go to college on his own.

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Try does not even keep score. The whole idea of having To keep a golf score would take him out of his game. Add the fact that it is a competition -for money - a Try will be a basket case. He excels at carefree, not high stakes.

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I thought they explained that in an earlier scene, the one where Ty breaks down and agrees to play against the Judge. He can't stand the judge, and doesn't want to lose to him.

Not about the money.

-I was born in a crossfire hurricane.

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Just to stick it to Judge Smails and Doctor Beeper was probably where his motivation lied. I really don't think the money was super important to Ty.

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"The bet went to 80 grand each, sure "

No, it didn't. It was a 'double or nothing' situation, which means only ONE of them would've had to pay that kind of money. The 'nothing' in 'double or nothing' means if Judge wins, he pays 'nothing', which means he doesn't have to pay. That's the WHOLE POINT about the 'double or nothing', but I don't expect the coked-up hollyweird writers to realize that, of course..

Now, to answer the point itself. I really don't want to defend this piecemeal of a 'movie' (honestly, is this really a movie?), but what people say about Tys psychology sort of makes sense.

Anyone can excel when there's no pressure and they can put themselves into the 'zone', because success or failure doesn't matter.

When there's sudden pressure, and it suddenly MATTERS, it's a completely different.. ehh.. 'ball game', I suppose.

This means, you can be in Zen mode as long as you don't put any importance into it. Suddenly there's ego involved, money involved, winning is important, so you can't be in Zen mode anymore, which means, you can't excel the same way. It's very simple and easy to understand.

However, I think there's still bad writing somewhere, because Ty KNOWS this whole thing very well, so why would he be so confident all of the sudden that he can win when keeping score, playing for money and when the winning is important, to 'avenge' for his father and all that? Why would he ever let his ego write those checks he KNOWS he can't cash?

He voluntarily put himself into a situation that he had been avoiding all his life - competition, money, scorekeeping, win, ego... instead of just playing, being in Zen, being one with nature and the ball, and just letting the flow happen and win, lose, success, failure, score - those things don't even enter into it.

So the bad writing, in my opinion, isn't that Ty suddenly lost his skill, but that 1) Ty PUT(t) himself into that situation that he had been avoiding all this time though He 2) KNEW what it would mean.

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I thought he didn't like playing competitively. Danny asks him at one point why he doesn't keep score when he plays.

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