Five Takeaways from Netflix's Full Swing Season 3

White Lotus, 1923, Severance . . . move on over. Full Swing is back.

The Netflix docuseries following the lives of professional golfers on and off the course returned to screens on Feb. 25, with seven episodes available for a full-on binge or small doses. Whatever path you choose, know that you are getting the unprecedented immersion that audiences have come to expect with Full Swing, but also a bunch of new storylines that encapsulated the 2024 season for handful of PGA TOUR players.

There's drama, there's Major Championships, there's team golf intensity, there's laughs, there's sadness, there's raw emotion. It's all packed into episodes bursting at the seams with unique perspectives you've know all along about certain players . . . but also some you'll discover for the first time.

Let's dive into some takeaways from the rollercoaster ride that was season 3.

We all know this fall that Keegan Bradley has his eyes set on reclaiming the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black from Team Europe, but Full Swing takes us back a few steps.

The heartbreak of not being picked for the 2023 U.S. Team still stings Bradley, but his 2024 campaign has been one of resurgence that's wiping away the past. The summer becomes a focal point for the 2011 PGA Champion: after a rather surprising phone call about being offered the job as U.S. Team Captain and accepting it, he's whisked around New York City being introduced as the Red, White and Blue's new skipper. It means a lot to Bradley, but he's got more to prove still.

That comes in the form of an excellent performance at the BMW Championship in Colorado, where he wins for the first time in 2024 with his dad, PGA of America Golf Professional Mark Bradley, in attendance to celebrate. That adds another feather in Bradley's cap for his campaign to join the U.S. Presidents Cup Team in Montreal. He's ultimately selected as a Captain's Pick and comes up clutch multiple times on the greens of Royal Montreal, clinching the winning point for the United States during Sunday Singles.

The final scene of season three is one that should give you chills (unless you're a fan of Team Europe). You can see how much the team events mean to Bradley, and there will be no bigger moment for that to shine through than at Bethpage. We'll just say this: Captain Keegan is ready for the Ryder Cup.

Season 3 certainly has its gaze on the focal points of the golf calendar in 2024, but it also pulls back the curtain tremendously well on life off the course for players. One episode, with The Open Championship as its backdrop, goes between Gary Woodland and Justin Rose. The latter has one of his best performances in a major in some time, but the former presents perhaps the rawest emotional moments in Full Swing's three seasons.

Woodland, who had surgery in late 2023 after scans found a tumor on his brain, is back playing on TOUR but battles constant migraines and relies on medication to keep them at bay. He details how, prior to surgery, he wrote letters to his young children and wife in the event the surgery wasn't successful, emotionally recalling the unique bits about what each letter said in a tearjerker of a scene.

But then, things take a turn for the better. He plays solid at Royal Troon for someone recovering from brain surgery and its followed by news that he can lower his medication dosage - a sign that perhaps things are finally turning more normal for the 2019 U.S. Open Champion.

It's seriously hard to not want to root going forward for Woodland, who's always been uber talented. Watching him go through the immense struggles and toll that brain surgery brought on him and his family, then to only see him turning the corner is incredibly heartwarming. If there's an award for most underrated episode in season 3, look no further than Woodland's.

Speaking of underrated, Neal Shipley may take the award for best character category.

We meet Shipley, competing in the 2024 Masters as the previous year's U.S. Amateur runner-up, early on in Full Swing but thank goodness we didn't have to wait too long. He's a lovable, goofy, down-to-earth Ohio State University undergrad who just so happens to be really darn good at golf. The Cribs-style tour of his college apartment is hilarious and terrifying for Shipley, who's pretty proud of his self-constructed beer case stand for he and his roommates' PlayStation.

But then it's on to the reason why Full Swing is talking to Shipley, which is, of course, that he's playing in the Masters. There's some really cool footage behind the scenes at the Crow's Nest - an iconic residency on top of Augusta National's clubhouse for amateurs playing that week - and Shipley getting to experience a golfer's dream. There's a sense he feels a bit out of place as a college kid playing in one of the world's biggest golf tournaments but that's quickly erased.

He becomes the only amateur to make the cut, securing his spot as Low Amateur alongside eventual Masters Champion Scottie Scheffler. And while that will likely always stick with Shipley, so, too, will his final round . . . where he played with his idol, Tiger Woods. Shipley's a bit nervous (who wouldn't be) but then he settles in next to Tiger after Woods complements his drive on the second hole (imagine). The two chat throughout the round, shake hands and go there separate ways. No big deal!

For Shipley, it's the week of a lifetime. For golf fans, we might have gotten a glimpse at a budding star in Shipley himself.

If there's any character in season 3 that golf fans would've probably liked to hear from, Rory McIlroy tops that list. His stunning collapse during the final holes of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst? He talks about it. The off-course battles? Yep, that too. If anything, McIlroy has never been shy to be candid and it's what makes listening to what he has to say so pertinent.

We won't rehash the lows from Rory's 2024 campaign; instead we'll focus on a long-time friendship that Full Swing uncovers in one of the first few episodes. And that's with Shane Lowry. You can probably guess why the two are friends: Rory's from Northern Ireland and Lowry hails from Ireland. But the two also crossed paths plenty of times during junior golf growing up on the Emerald Isle and formed a bond that's only grown as the two have gotten older.

McIlroy and Lowry's episode builds out their friendship nicely and culminates with it being stress-tested at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans, where the duo are playing together. There's moments of good shots, bad shots and in between shots, but the two scrap together a score good enough to get into a playoff. They ultimately win thanks McIlroy's impeccable bunker game; something Lowry's used to seeing throughout the years, but doesn't gawk at.

Their friendship is strong, but it's stayed strong because Lowry treats McIlroy like his brother. He talks about not treating Rory different because of his talents and trying to butter him up like so many who meet McIlroy do. Lowry, who's got a wisecracking sense of humor that McIlroy loves, delivers doses of reality and treats him as the kid he met in junior golf all those years ago. To him, he's just Rory.

There's something cool about exploring this friendship. A lot of golfers and people can probably relate to McIlroy and Lowry's friendship, where our best friends are the ones where we can just be ourselves around. Maybe that's not what Full Swing was going for, but at the very least, it's another point on the board for the argument that, professional golfers . . . they're just like us.

To wrap, here's some quick tidbits from throughtout season 3 --- Minjee and Min Woo Lee were the first siblings to play in an Olympic Golf competition at the Paris Games, but they still want to beat each other; right now, Minjee has the upper hand with a major title . . . while Bryson DeChambeau wasn't interviewed in season 3, Netflix does a masterful job piecing together old clips and sound, plus perspectives from across the game on Bryson, to paint a picture of someone turning from anti-hero to hero . . . Sahith Theegala may be the most honest man in golf. At the 2024 TOUR Championship he called a penalty on himself after moving some sand grains in a fairway bunker. It cost him two strokes, but even worse? It cost him $2 million. Good karma is in full supply for him though . . . Back on the team events for a second, it was tough to see Canadians Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor get left off the International Presidents Cup squad. You can tell how much playing for a team means to these players who are usually competing for themselves. We'll likely see more of that dynamic in Full Swing season 4 if there is one . . . The interviews with Scottie Scheffler's caddie Ted Scott were fantastic. Scott provides an inside look at how he started with the World No. 1, and only if he would change his attitude. It's worked out OK.