The 1913 U.S. Open final between British champion Harry Vardon and American upstart Francis Ouimet might well have been “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” but don't get unduly aroused by the grandiose title: It was still golf.

Could there be a sport — with its hushed galleries and gentlemanly pace — more uniquely suited to lull movie audiences into an excitement-deprived coma? I can think of none (even if you allow for the amusing spectacle of Bill Murray stuffing dynamite into gopher holes, or Bob Barker laying Adam Sandler flat with a vicious right).

Undeterred, director Bill Paxton — the “Twister” actor, here making his directorial follow-up to the underseen psychological thriller “Frailty” (2001) — tests the limits of tacky, subjective camera work to bring golf up to speed. When a shot is ripped across the fairway, the camera tags along, Sam Raimi-style, as if tethered to the ball. When Paxton executes a smash-pan, we hear an audible whoosh! sound, as if the camera were piercing the sound barrier just to keep pace with this very, very stimulating and completely nontedious sport!

Ultimately, Paxton emerges with an overdirected, self-intoxicated tale of underdog glory that's only slightly less tiresome than the preening mysticism of “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (2000).

Adapting the script from his own best-selling novel, screenwriter Mark Frost (“The Fantastic Four”) enshrines Vardon and Ouimet as twin warriors in a post-Industrial Age class struggle. Vardon (Stephen Dillane from “The Hours”) grew up poor and despised on the island of Jersey and now jadedly competes at the behest of upper-crust snobs who would not otherwise tolerate his company. Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf from “Constantine”) fights past elitist golf barons and the disapproval of his own immigrant father (Elias Koteas) to make an unlikely run at America's most prestigious golf event, alongside his plucky, pint-sized caddie (Josh Flitter, in a scene-stealing performance).

Both of these men have potential as character studies, but Paxton labors to make their stories mutually meaningful (especially in the case of Vardon, a cold, taciturn man haunted, somewhat hollowly, by the top-hat-wearing aristocrat villains of his youth).

Consequently, “Greatest Game” has a two-headed quality, like some stitched-together freak that shambles up to the tee-box and promptly slices one into the rough.

'The Greatest Game Ever Played'
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Stephen Dillane, Peter Firth, Elias Koteas
Rating: PG (brief mild profanity)
Running time: 115 minutes
Playing: pens Friday in Valley theaters

GRADE: C-