This ending was such a welcome surprise for a sports movie, an ending which was true to the character and taught a much better lesson than just winning all the time. Roy McAvoy, played by Kevin Costner, has already proven himself as a good golfer as he follows up a disastrous opening round with a second day round in which he scores the best one day total in the history of the U.S. Open. For all three previous days, on the final 18th hole, Roy had tried to go for it to make it on the green instead of going for the safe shot, and each day hit the ball in the water. So on the final day, Roy, and his chief rival David Simms play the 18th and final hole one last time. For his second shot, Roy is in the same place and even though he hit the ball in the water three times on this hole, he grabs the 3-wood and tries again. He knows he has it, but then there's "a little wind there" -- the ball lands on the green but rolls back down into the water. Roy knows he can make that shot, and as determined as he always has been, makes his caddy Romeo give him another ball and he decides to hit it from the exact same spot, instead of taking a drop up near the water hazard. The crowd and announcers are stunned that he would do this.

So he tees up to hit the ball again and again hits this one in the water. He had needed that one to stay in contention. Still determined, he hits another ball from the same spot. The announcers keep wondering why he's doing this, and his caddy Romeo looks on in disappointment, until he finally hits his 10th shot into the water, and is down to his last ball. If he hits this one in the water, he'll be disqualified. He tees it up, hits it, and not only gets it on the green, but it rolls right into the cup. The crowd erupts and gets to their feet. The announcers also erupt in disbelief. "He was on the green with a hole in 12!" Roy takes his final walk up to the hole, to the cheers of the crowd. He grabs the ball and throws it in the water in honor of his continual plight with the water, causing three young men to jump in after it. Roy has grabbed the imagination of everyone who had witnessed this, including the audience. As Rene Russo tells him afterward, no one is going to remember who won the U.S. Open five years from now, but they'll always remember Roy's 12. True to his character, he proved to himself that he could do something, and created an immortal moment, not only in the fictional world of the movie, but in cinema history as well. This moving ending tells us it's not always that you have to win -- you have to be true to yourself and then you win the greatest victory.