THE MAGICAL MYSTERY OF - BILL MURRAY
BY JEFF ALEXANDER
Bill Murray is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, and yet so far removed from the traditional ideal of an actor, he’s more likely to be seen dancing with fans at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am than attending awards parties. Here, the ever-surprising and undefinable Murray talks about how, despite his unparalleled success on the silver screen, he will always be happiest out in nature, smashing a long shot over an uphill green. 

What is there to say about Bill Murray? In Hollywood lore, he stalks the fine line between real-life and gossip as a kind of celebrity Sasquatch, shrouded in unconfirmed tales of mysterious appearances at karaoke bars and strangers’ stag-dos. In the swirling haze of legends and anecdotes, one thing about Murray is certain: he loves golf. From his first job as a teenage golf caddie to his appearance as eccentric greenskeeper Carl Spackler in the 1980 cult comedy classic Caddyshack and his subsequent annual involvement in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Murray and golf go together like Dr. Peter Venkman and unruly ghosts.

“I was a caddie and that’s how I came to golf,” Murray begins. “It’s not that I want to dress any certain way or wear loafers without socks. I play golf because I was a caddie; I worked my through school as a caddie, so I got the game.

“Then all of a sudden I had some money, so I didn’t have to caddie anymore,” he continues. “I could go out and play golf more than you could as a caddie.”

Murray’s experiences of helping out on the green would come in handy years later when he landed his breakthrough role as Spackler in Harold Ramis’ Caddyshack. Murray’s larger-than-life portrayal of the peculiar Spackler, who attempts throughout the film to curb a rampant gopher infestation via increasingly bombastic methods, was a surprise fans’ favorite. 

At first, Spackler’s character was meant to be nothing more than a cameo role, but with Murray’s enigmatic talent shining through, the greenskeeper was written into more shots and provided Caddyshack fans with some of the film’s most memorable, and hilarious, scenes.

“They needed a character to be the balance between the members and the caddies, and asked me to come down and do the character that became Carl Spackler,” Murray reminisces. “It was supposed to be a small role – pretty much just the scene with the head greenskeeper telling me to deal with gopher. It became a lot more.”

One of Murray’s scene-stealing antics sees Spackler absent-mindedly lopping the heads off of a row of tulips with a grass-whip while imaging himself getting a hole in one at Augusta to complete the ‘Cinderella Story’ of a “former groundskeeper about to become Masters Champion.” Like much of his dialogue in the film, the speech was entirely improvised by Murray.

“I thought of this traffic cop who used to work at 77th and Broadway in New York,” explains Murray, “He was completely miserable with his job, and he’d be muttering out the side of his mouth. I’d stay and watch him pretty regularly – he absolutely despised the people crossing the street.”

This technique is typical of Murray’s uncanny ability to speak to people of all ages and backgrounds through his acting, and something which Bill can trace back to his time on the golf course, caddying for the members of the club.

“It was an extraordinary education for me - I learned a lot from men… a lot about how you wanted to be treated, and you learned how to treat people by seeing how these people treated you.”

Caddying also gave Murray his “first glimpse of comedy,” as he told The Daily Mail in 2010. “There’s nothing funnier,” he smiled, “than watching grown men near to tears because they’ve missed hitting a little white ball into a hole from three feet.” 

These days, the 68-year-old’s love affair with the game is as strong as ever. From the outside, Murray appears to have slowed his acting commitments down drastically, and his public appearances often see him on the lazy side of disheveled. The truth is, the actor has precious little to prove these days. His run of success through the Eighties and Nineties not only ensured he had the funds to while away his days playing golf forevermore, should he wish, but took the Illinois-born actor into a premium entertainment headspace of showbiz glossiness that he felt uncomfortable inhabiting. 

As a result, his choices, going right the way back to 2003’s Lost in Translation have become much more alternative. “You get older, and you get smarter,” he says. “I’d done the box office stuff, I’d passed 50 – it was wrong for me to be smiling my way around red carpets and premieres. I didn’t fit that mold anymore.”

What has remained is Murray’s scorching dry wit, and a set of improvisational skills that have elevated so many of his movies into iconic status. Murray says a lot of that has been down to his first mentor, Del Close, who was part of the Chicago-based comedy troupe The Second City. It was Close who pushed the actor into the unknown, through rambling, unfocussed territory to an inevitably hilarious conclusion.

“Del was incredibly gracious to your talent and always tried to further it; he got people to perform beyond their expectations,” Murray says, “He taught people to commit. You’ve got to commit; you’ve got to go out there and improvise, and you’ve got to be completely unafraid to die.”

“You have to die a lot,” he continues, “You’re going out there with just a whisper of an idea. The fear will make you clench up; that’s the fear of dying. When you start, and the first few lines don’t grab people, and then you just put your arms out and open way up. That allows your stuff to get out. Otherwise, it’s just stuck inside you.”

While Murray’s perception of risk has taken him so far in drama, those same echoes are relevant enough for the golf course too. “It’s all a challenge, and much of the time the battle is with yourself,” he says. “Certainly that’s the case where golf is concerned – you may be playing with someone, but ultimately you’re taking on yourself.”

Murray may well be unpredictable, but at times he’s also remarkably open. In spite of his reputation in some circles of the media as brusque to the point of near-rudeness – he once called a group of journalists “morons” whilst playing the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews – or sad to the point of depressed, Murray maintains that his occasionally downbeat demeanor is nothing more than a healthy, human reaction.

“I don’t mind feeling the pain, of course, I have problems,” he muses, “To me, I kind of like feeling sad and I think it’s okay to show emotion. I think trying to deny emotion is like an enormous drain on your brain. You can’t fight your emotions because they’re more powerful than you are.”

While Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation earned Murray four Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Murray himself, and set him apart from his peers as an actor capable enough to realistically deal with comedy, drama and everything else in between, his performance ambitions are a lot more sedentary these days.

“There is an honor and nobility in being able to turn down work,” he says, evidencing commitments in 2019 that begin and end with The Dead Don’t Die, a horror/comedy drama alongside Adam Driver, and Zombieland: Double Tap, also a horror/comedy-drama, and also starring Adam Driver. “It’s good to keep people guessing,” he laughs.

Despite Murray taking on lead roles with a host of renowned directors – including Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Ivan Reitman among others – his off-the-wall personality and yearning for independence has rendered him a notoriously difficult figure to pin down.

Remarkably for an actor with the gravitas of Murray, he has no agent, instead doing all his business through a semi-secret phone number that is reverently passed around Hollywood to interested parties. Murray states that his decision to forego an agent and create some distance between himself and the industry had a positive impact on his life and mindset, but his decision to stay off the grid has reportedly cost him lead roles in several movies that went on to become commercial and financial successes, such as Rain Man, Toy Story and Little Miss Sunshine.

Murray’s love for a deserved slice of peace and quiet also fuels his passion for the tranquillity of an expansive course and a relaxing game of golf.

“I love playing with my friends. Something happens on a golf course; you’re able to talk about things you can’t speak about at other times with other people,” he says. “You feel free. It’s an intimacy you feel out there on the course, all alone in nature, that you don’t get in other places.”

His love of the sport even extended to the restaurant – Caddy Shack, in St. Augustine, north-eastern Florida – that he co-owns with his brothers; while his book Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf works as a semi-serious survival guide for anyone dragged into the addictive ideals of the sport.

Murray’s book is part autobiography, part golfing memoir, and part love letter to the Pebble Beach course that he frequents yearly for the Pro-Am competition, which he describes as “lit from within.”

“It’s a very special place,” he reiterates, “The course is great; beautiful, hard. When I was watching the 2010 U.S Open, I was so proud. The USGA tricked it up more for the Open than for the likes of us playing in the Pro-Am, but I still felt like it stood up to the test.”

In 2011, a real-life Cinderella Story occurred at Pebble Beach, as D.A Points secured his first win on the PGA Tour with a selection of impressive swings – including a bizarre gap wedge shot that just about cleared the bunker, before rolling down the slope and into the hole on the notorious 14th hole. His partner? Bill Murray, who now has his name inscribed in the roll-call of honor below the first tee. 

Murray’s seeming inability to take things seriously even translate to the course. Rumour has it that some players find his antics distracting – such as when he jokes with the crowd or buys them all ice cream – and he was even threatened with a ban from the Pro-Am competition after upending an old lady in a sand-trap. Wherever Murray goes, hilarity and carnage ensue, occasionally in equal measure, but more often than not unpredictably skewed to one particular side. 

The inclusion of his name on the hallowed first tee plaque at Pebble Beach, however, proves that, much like Murray’s cinematic persona, amidst the eccentric antics a genuine talent continues to bubble away.

“I got to a seven handicap, but that’s when I was playing a lot near the end of summer,” he says. “The ground was hard and baked, and a good drive is coming in at 360 yards, so your handicap can drop quickly. I’m between a 7 and 11 – “Seven Eleven” has a nice ring to it.

“When I’m playing a lot, I can drive the ball really well and hit it far and where I want to hit it,” he continued, “But when my swing is queer, I struggle with balance, so I’ll hit 5-irons until I get it right. It’s a good lesson – you learn it’s not too damaging to your score to hit 5-irons if you hit them straight.”

Whether Murray is hitting with aplomb or disgust, these days the reaction is often the same – he gives nothing away, mutters a few words and ensures a straight face at all times. He doesn’t want to fall into obscurity but steers clear of making a fuss, and in that respect, both his golf and his career are moving on nicely.