Though famous for popularizing pinot noir across the planet, the film Sideways was actually first inspired by golf.
Rex Pickett , who wrote the novel that became the Oscar-winning film, was down on his luck in the 1990s. “That was a brutal decade for me,” said Pickett, whose life was in a tailspin. “I was very isolated and very alone. So I went back to the game of golf.”
He’d regularly drive from Santa Monica to play Sandpiper Golf Course in Goleta, where he heard about La Purisima Golf Course near Lompoc, but he wasn’t immediately keen on adding another 50 miles to his drive. “Finally one day, I just drove past Sandpiper and went to La Purisima, and I absolutely fell in love,” said Pickett. “That’s really the first inspiration for Sideways, even though I didn’t know it at the time. I really went up to play golf.”