Tin Cup
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Tin Cup trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tin Cup is the rare sports film that golfers and non-golfers remember with equal affection. Released in 1996, it follows Roy McAvoy, a gifted West Texas range pro who would rather lose spectacularly than win carefully, and it ends on one of the most argued-over final holes in cinema. This quiz covers the story and its characters, the cast and the people who made the film, the real tour players and broadcasters who appear as themselves, and the true golf stories behind its most famous scenes. It also looks at where the film was shot and how it fared on release. The questions start gently and get tougher, so they suit anyone who has seen the film once as well as fans who stop to watch whenever it comes on. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future U.S. president told Tin Cup's director, after a New York screening, to recut the ending so Roy wins?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump, by the director's account, skipped the congratulations and said a happier ending would make more money. The director kept the finish he had already defended against the studio.
Q 02Tin Cup reached cinemas in August 1996, less than two weeks before which golf superstar turned professional?
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods turned pro days after the film opened, so it missed the golf boom he set off. Its director reckons a release one year later would have doubled the takings.
Q 03Which actor plays washed-up range pro Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup, two years after starring as lawman Wyatt Earp?
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner had played only about a dozen rounds of golf before taking the part. His crash course included a boot-camp week of lessons at a tour event in Akron, Ohio.
Q 04How does Roy McAvoy finish the U.S. Open's final hole in Tin Cup after repeatedly finding the water?
Holes out for a 12
Holes out for a 12 is how it ends: with the last ball in his bag he clears the pond and it drops into the cup. The shot costs him the title, and the crowd goes wild anyway.
Q 05David Simms visits Roy McAvoy's trailer in Tin Cup to offer him which humbling job at a benefit tournament?
Caddie
Caddie is the job on offer, though Roy assumes his old college teammate has come to invite him to play. He takes the bag anyway and spends the round needling Simms for playing safe.
Q 06Tin Cup's director defended Roy McAvoy's losing finish by citing the ending of which Humphrey Bogart classic?
Casablanca
Casablanca sticks in the memory, he argued, because the audience does not get the ending it wants. Hollywood executives had pressed him to let Roy win the tournament.
Q 07The star of Tin Cup almost passed on Roy McAvoy, worn out by 157 shooting days on which 1995 blockbuster?
Waterworld
Waterworld had left him drained and in the middle of a divorce, and it took his agent to talk him into the golf comedy. He later called saying yes one of the best things he ever did.
Q 08Tin Cup earned roughly twice as much as which Adam Sandler comedy released six months earlier in 1996?
Happy Gilmore
Happy Gilmore arrived in February 1996 and took about half of Tin Cup's box office. Both golf films narrowly missed the surge in the sport's popularity that began the following year.
Q 09In a Tin Cup bar bet, Roy McAvoy hits a ball from inside the clubhouse to knock which bird off its perch?
Pelican
Pelican is the target, and the stunt was lifted from a real bar bet in the career of the film's golf consultant. The scene was shot in the clubhouse of a Texas country club.
Q 10Which comedian, half of a famous 1970s comedy double act, plays Roy McAvoy's sidekick Romeo in Tin Cup?
Cheech Marin
Cheech Marin plays Romeo Posar, who argues with Roy over every club and walks out on him in the middle of a round. He comes back in time to fix Roy's swing before the big tournament.
Q 11Which actress plays Dr. Molly Griswold in Tin Cup, the same year she starred opposite Mel Gibson in Ransom?
Rene Russo
Rene Russo's Molly turns up at Roy's range wanting lessons because her boyfriend is a tour star. The New York Times said she had finally landed a full-fledged comic role after a string of huge hits.
Q 12Which star of the 1980s cop show Miami Vice plays smug tour pro David Simms in Tin Cup?
Don Johnson
Don Johnson was offered the part in a matter of minutes by a director scrambling after his first choice quit three weeks before the shoot.
Q 13What is Dr. Molly Griswold's profession when she arrives at Roy McAvoy's range for a lesson in Tin Cup?
Psychologist
Q 21In Tin Cup, Roy McAvoy hustles bets by playing a full round with what in place of his regular clubs?
Garden tools
Garden tools such as a shovel and a hoe do the job, along with a baseball bat. Roger Ebert picked these bets against amateurs who fancy themselves professionals as some of the film's funniest scenes.
Q 22Tin Cup's fictional U.S. Open was filmed on Texas courses, but in which state does the story set it?
North Carolina
North Carolina is where the script places the tournament, at a made-up course. Its real stand-in was a private Texas club, which later set a marble plaque on the spot of Roy's final shot.
Q 23Which golf broadcaster, hired as Tin Cup's consultant, once took 16 on one hole, inspiring Roy McAvoy's finale?
Psychologist is her trade, and she strikes a deal with Roy: therapy for his head in return for help with her swing. She has only taken up the game because her boyfriend plays on tour.
Q 14Which cautious tactic does Roy McAvoy stubbornly refuse to use on long par 5s throughout Tin Cup?
Laying up
Laying up means playing short of trouble instead of going for the green, and Roy treats it as cowardice. The writers built the whole character on that one flaw, starting with the ending.
Q 15Tin Cup reunited its director and its leading man, who first worked together on which 1988 minor-league comedy?
Bull Durham
Bull Durham drew on the director's own years as a minor-league infielder and made his name. Eight years later he swapped the diamond for the fairway with the same star.
Q 16Playing Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup earned its star a Best Actor nomination, in the comedy category, at which awards?
Golden Globes
Golden Globes voters nominated him for best actor in a musical or comedy, the film's single nomination there. He did not take the trophy home.
Q 17Who struck most of Roy McAvoy's on-screen shots in Tin Cup after coaching from two television golf analysts?
The lead actor himself
The lead actor himself hit them, having ruled out a double from the start. One of his coaches says he improved enough to shoot even par a couple of times during the shoot.
Q 18Tin Cup was pushed to an August 1996 opening to steer clear of which sporting event held that summer?
The Olympic Games
The Olympic Games in Atlanta pushed the film into a late-summer slot its makers thought undesirable. It still opened at number one at the box office.
Q 19Which former minor-league ballplayer directed and co-wrote Tin Cup four years after making White Men Can't Jump?
Ron Shelton
Ron Shelton says golf was by far the hardest sport he ever filmed. A tournament, he pointed out, is 150 players doing much the same thing over and over across 150 acres.
Q 20Which sportscaster, the longtime television host of the Masters, plays himself calling Roy McAvoy's rounds in Tin Cup?
Jim Nantz
Jim Nantz recorded his speech about Roy's record-breaking round months after filming, sitting in the back seat of his rental car because no soundproof booth was available.
Gary McCord
Gary McCord put five balls in the water in a row at a 1986 tour event in Memphis, refusing to change clubs until he was down to his last ball. He then sank a 25-foot putt.
Q 24Which network's golf crew covers the fictional U.S. Open in Tin Cup, although NBC held the real broadcast rights?
CBS
CBS lent its real announcers and its veteran golf producer, who all play themselves. The director reworked the tournament scenes after watching that producer run a broadcast from the truck.
Q 25Which dreaded swing fault strikes Roy McAvoy on the practice range just before the U.S. Open in Tin Cup?
The shanks
The shanks send his practice balls squirting sideways until Romeo sorts out his swing. The practice-range scenes were filmed at a real golf school in Texas.
Q 26What good news does Molly give Roy back in Texas as Tin Cup ends?
A place in next year's Open
A place in next year's Open comes automatically with his finish, she tells him, and the two kiss. The man who threw away the title has still earned his way back.
Q 27Which club does Roy McAvoy stubbornly hit again and again over the water on Tin Cup's final hole?
3-wood
The 3-wood stays in his hands for shot after shot, when a shorter and safer play was open to him. Golf Digest counts the way his last one spins among the film's least realistic moments.
Q 28Roy McAvoy's West Texas driving range in Tin Cup was actually built from scratch in which other state?
Arizona
Arizona supplied the desert: the range was built in a remote spot about an hour south of Tucson. A golf club in the same state hosted some of the film's early scenes.
Q 29What is wrong with Roy McAvoy when he plays his dreadful opening round at the U.S. Open in Tin Cup?
Hungover
Hungover from the night before, he posts a score in the eighties and looks sure to miss the cut. He answers the next day with a record-low round.
Q 30Which future three-time Masters champion is among the real tour pros who play themselves in Tin Cup?
Phil Mickelson
Phil Mickelson was one of several real pros recruited by the film's golf consultant. When the budget could not meet their fees, a dinner with the two male leads persuaded them to work for scale.