A cell phone rings. It belongs to Brett Rice, McDowell's playing partner and a co-star in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, the biopic that wrapped on Spanish Hills' 12th tee just two hours earlier. The caller is Rice's wife. McDowell's piercing blue eyes light up as he grabs the phone.

"Sweetheart, it's Malcolm," he says. "Are you wearing panties? A thong? No? Mmm, nice. Your husband has been telling me about his prowess, which is odd, because I thought he played for the other team."

A recovering alcoholic and former cocaine user, McDowell is short on vices these days. He's pretty much down to flirting with friends' wives and playing golf, which he took up three years ago. "I thought it was an old man's game," says the 60-year-old Englishman, who plays Jones's friend and biographer O.B. Keeler in the film. "Then I hit this 7-iron that soared like a bird, and I was hooked. I've been looking for that damn bird ever since."

McDowell takes a short, handsy swipe, knocks one to five feet and gives his club a cocksure twirl. "Don't f--- with me!" he crows. His brash manner must please the game's deities, for a gift from the gods awaits him.

Jim Caviezel, who stars as Jones, is as bashful as McDowell is bold. He greets you with a soft handshake and a shy "hi." In character, though, he's all Southern charm and swagger, as when answering an off-camera autograph request. "Well suh, I usually charge $5," he drawls. "But for you, I'll make it $10. After all, I am the one and only Grand Slam winnah."

Spanish Hills is an ideal golf-movie location, bordered by the Topa Topa mountains, the Pacific and fragrant fields of strawberries. But it must feel like a muni compared to the sacred fairways that have already hosted the Genius crew: Augusta National and Atlanta Country Club as well as the Old Course at St. Andrews, where no other film crew had ever been allowed. Today this Bob Cupp design subs for New York's Inwood Country Club, site of the 1923 U.S. Open, Jones's first major victory. Caviezel, surrounded by a tweedy throng of extras, has just sent a key tee shot into the rough, and he musters many wide, mocking grins to show Jones's disgust. After one take too many, he says, "I feel like I'm in a Wrigley's commercial."

Opening April 30, the $18 million period piece chronicles Jones's grueling march to the 1930 Grand Slam. It may seem a curious choice for the 35-year-old Caviezel, who wasn't a golfer before taking on the role (he's now hooked). But he's not like other leading men. A devout Catholic, he abhors love scenes (he had co-star Jennifer Lopez cover her breasts during a steamy moment in 2001's Angel Eyes), married a schoolteacher, and prefers character studies to blockbusters. Caviezel, who watched Jones swing on tape "literally a half-million times" to master the move, was drawn to Genius because it's about a man, not a myth: "Jones carried great burdens. He had family problems, enormous pressure to win the Grand Slam, a disease that was taking over his body -- he was on the verge of snapping."

Caviezel, who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial The Passion of the Christ ("I went from playing the messiah to the messiah of golf"), admits that being a movie star with deep faith can be trying. "There's temptation, but I can't have everything. God says what you do in private is who you are. And at the end of my life, I want to meet Bobby Jones and say, 'Hey, let's play golf.' "

By the 17th hole, the sun has slipped behind the topa Topa Mountains, turning their chiseled peaks the color of cotton candy. "We call those 'pink moments,' " says McDowell, who lives in nearby Ojai with his third wife, 36-year-old artist Kelley Kuhr. His only mistress is a King Cobra 440 SZ driver, courtesy of Tom Crow, the Cobra Golf co-founder who helped finance Genius. "I love this driver. I kill the ball. But I need new irons. Can you get me a set of Titleist 690s?"

McDowell can afford his own swag. After some lean years (see Cyborg 3: The Recycler, or better yet, don't), he doesn't lack for work. He got raves early this year as the driven director of a dance troupe in Robert Altman's The Company. Tackling Keeler was a no-brainer, he says -- when you're best known for playing a psychotic thug who pummels an old man while crooning "Singin' in the Rain," you jump at a good-guy part. "I got fed up, always having to play some version of Alex," he says of his Clockwork role. "But all the best parts are nutters. And hey, it's an honor to be in a film that's become part of the language."

McDowell's own language has been blue but good-natured, though the golf gods have been no kinder to him than Kubrick was. The Clockwork director sent his star to the hospital with scratched corneas while filming the infamous scene in which Alex's eyes are pried open with metal clamps. "When I came back from the hospital," McDowell says, "Stanley said he needed a close-up, and I said 'No f---ing way. I won't let you! The stand-in has blue eyes -- use him!' But the stand-in says, 'I'm not doing it!' So Stanley badgered me into it -- and he scratched my cornea again!"

After finding the fairway on the par-4 18th, McDowell shanks one into deep brush, curses and drops a ball in the second cut. From 170 yards out he creams a 6-iron and trudges toward the shadowy green. But there's no ball to be found. He checks the rough and both bunkers. Nothing.

He walks to the flag, takes a peek and, yes, finds his ball. McDowell's in shock, and he is not acting. "It's in the f---ing cup!" he says, sounding a little put off that the twilight has kept him from witnessing the shot of his life.

"I've been playing for 10 years," another player says, "and I've never seen a hole-out from that far away."

"Neither have I," McDowell answers, stunned. "And I still haven't."