Murray's Law: Laying Down the Laughs at Pebble Beach

by Victor Williams

Murray's on-course mug is as malleable as his comic timing is impeccable.

I am a contestant in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. It says so on the side of my car. And for one week, I’m on the Princess Cruise of amateur golf, playing the greatest stand of courses in pro golfdom in front of galleries larger than those at the Little League World Series at Williamsport, having more fun than I will have for the rest of the year. And it’s only the first week in February.
— Bill Murray from Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf with George Peper, Broadway Books, 1999

The throw was high and tight, no more than a benign lob, but given the setting and circumstances, a candidate for the highlight reel on a local, late-night sports show. Or maybe The Golf Channel in garbage time.

Through the lens, it was a spot-on throw and most likely honed in on its intended target like a Clemens heater to the lower outside corner — without the heat, ’cause this was the 12th tee at Spyglass Hill on a Thursday afternoon in February, and this wasn’t the Rocket. It was Carl Spackler, 27 years on, and he nailed the target — in this case, a writer and part-time photographer — square in the right forearm. As he walked away, the deliverer gave his victim a wry little glance and smirkish smile. “Hey I was just trying to turn the double play!”

Such are the pitfalls of life in Bill Murray’s gallery at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he is by far the biggest celebrity draw, beating out the likes of Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Huey Lewis, Chris O’Donnell, Kenny G and even George Lopez, celeb golf’s newest Bob Hope wannabe. With his assortment of goofy hats (more on one in particular later), slightly disheveled wardrobe (untucked shirts are di rigueur) and nearly constant expression of arch bemusement, Murray, at 56, is the 21st century ringleader for the granddaddy of PGA Tour pro-ams. Every day and on every course, anyone standing along the ropes as Murray saunters their way — drunken college kid, uppity rich guy, big-busted groupie, elderly couple, media pest, whoever — could at any time be cast in his stream-of-consciousness comedy routine, otherwise known as the Longest Round on Tour.

“It is what it is, a six-hour round, and you can’t be too serious about it,” says CBS commentator and longtime Tour player Gary McCord, who’s been known to sling his share of voice-over zingers. “If you do, you go absolutely berserko.”

Murray is anything but berserk out there. He’s engaging, slightly aloof and always quick with the barb, whether unsolicited or in response to a salvo from the crowd. And in a nod to his love for team sports (and his near-hometown Cubs, Bulls and Bears, in particular), he’ll field whatever sphere comes his way — baseball, golf ball, or in the case of the vignette above, an apple rolled to him for God knows what reason, maybe in hopes of a biodegradable autograph — and turn it into a cutting, off-the-cuff one-liner. He can’t help joining in, playing the game, no matter how fleeting or out-of-place. As one of nine kids who devised their childhood games on the streets of Evanston, Ill., he’s used to making plays on the fly.

It’s the same with the jokes. He’s a genius at conjuring impromptu, unscripted rope-line skits a la Second City, the Chicago comedy troupe from which Murray vaulted to Saturday Night Live stardom and cinematic immortality as Carl, the screwy, gopher-hunting greenskeeper in Caddyshack, generally considered the best golf movie — or at least the funniest golf movie — ever made. And he does it all while managing some downright decent shots alongside his longtime AT&T partner, Scott Simpson, fellow pro Jeff Sluman and whatever amateur Sluman draws that year, in a setting that’s always less than conducive to textbook concentration. In fact, at the AT&T, staged at Western golf’s most hallowed arena, all pretense of normal decorum is pretty much left with the Merlot stains under a chair in Pebble Beach’s raucous Tap Room — or outside on the Club XIX patio, where Murray, Simpson, Slu and company have been know to hold court into the wee hours.

Clearly, this is Murray’s bailywick: The crush of people, the unforgettable golf, the camaraderie, the banter and, above all, his sneaky brand of comedy, created literally on the run as the Titleists fly all around him and the paying customers do their best to draw his blue-eyed gaze.

“Basically, it’s chaos,” McCord continues. “He is the Chaos Theory. All the times I’ve played with him, I’m always taken aback by the stuff he comes up with. When you do standup, it’s for 20 minutes. He’s up there for six hours. And he always comes up with something new. It’s a constant. The chaos is not planned, it’s spontaneous, which is unbelievable. And he can still function as a human being. Out there, he’s a little bit like an alien.

“I remember one time I was standing on one of the tees at the Plantation Course during a tournament, and there were people standing all around him. He started going off on something, just went nuts. His eyes started rolling back in his head. I looked at him and said, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ He looked at me and goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I think it’s an out-of-body experience, most of it.”

The Thursday round at Spyglass in this year’s AT&T found Murray in just such a Zen state, and in top form. As his group headed inward from the sublime quintet of opening holes and the stern seaside breeze that usually accompanies them, the skies turned darker and the winds began seriously swirling through the Monterey pines. The gloom only served to brighten Murray’s mood and groove — his already smooth golf swing, the loose, full, almost off-handed move of a born athlete. He’s listed as a 14 handicap on the official AT&T pairings sheet, but he’s capable of scratching out a sub-80 round on occasion.

“He can really play; he hits a lot of great shots, and we’re never surprised when he hits a good one,” Sluman said after a stint on Pebble’s range the day before. He should know. Sluman joined Team Bill a dozen years ago and has been there every year except one, when he withdrew due to his father’s illness. “It’s a friendship that’s ensued from 1995 — myself, Scott and Bill — and it’s just fantastic. I wouldn’t miss this tournament with him for the world. We’ve just had great times together.”

It takes several quality strokes in a row to get by No. 6 at Spyglass, a monster 4-par, well more than 400 uphill yards, probably the toughest hole on the Peninsula’s toughest track. Murray piped his tee shot out there about 275, cheating toward the left edge of the fairway — a good angle to a pin tucked back-right. He then rifled a hybrid to the front edge, barely missed a long-range birdie putt and gave his partner, Simpson, a ration for leaving his own putt on the same line a mile short. To test Sluman’s mettle over a testy 10-footer, Murray stuffed a $20 bill into the cup. The 1988 PGA Champ laughed and took aim, but didn’t convert. Murray pocketed the double-sawbuck with a mocking shrug and moved on. The crowd followed and waited for the next show.

Murray delivered, again and again, hole to hole, wowing the minions not only with his pithy verbal asides but flashes of his overlooked physical humor, as well — holding a photo-op follow-through after a particularly good shot, tipping his hat and taking a bow after another, taking a breather on a gallery member’s lap while his buddies lined up their putts (one of his favorites), doing his best Chi Chi Rodriguez parry-and-thrust after burying a dicey downhill par putt … and, oh yeah, the hat. When it comes to wacky lids — and you’ll see them at the AT&T, adorning the domes of the likes of Lopez, Garcia and Samuel L. Jackson — Murray takes top honors. On this day, his chapeau of choice was a big, broad straw hat festooned with bright pink flowers, ugly by even his standards. And that’s why he wore it — that and the fact it had once belonged to one of his best friends in Monterey. Her name was Helen Westland, and years ago she helped establish Hospice House (now the Westland House), a 28-bed hospice facility for terminally ill patients.

“The two first met during the week of the 1995 AT&T Pro-Am, through the late Dee Keaton, who befriended a somewhat lonely Murray during his first visit to the tournament,” longtime Monterey Herald journalist Ed Vyeda wrote in 2001. “That week, Westland was to meet at Hospice House with the AT&T Pro-Am board of directors, which included Keaton. She dressed in a neat navy blue suit, with white shoes. Murray immediately walked up to her and asked, ‘What are you doing with the nurse’s shoes on?’

“‘I look as good as you do,’ Westland cracked right back. Murray started laughing. He made a friend. And in a matter of minutes, he was posing for photos with patients and their families, signing autographs and telling jokes — a routine he has repeated many times during his trips back to the Pro-Am.”

Vyeda then related how The Hat got its mojo. “The next day, Westland was at the Pro-Am, watching near the 15th green at Pebble Beach, which is not far down the hill from her home. She was wearing a hat made from Hawaiian pineapple reeds, with a distinctive headband of red silk hibiscus.

“When Murray’s foursome came along, Westland saw him waving at her. Then she was approached by his caddie, who said, ‘Mr. Murray wants your hat.’ Not a chance. She kept the hat. Still has it. In fact, she wore it at the 2000 Hospice Foundation golf tournament — which meant Murray had to wear a straw hat, too.”

After Westland died last summer, Murray finally got the hat of his dreams, and we assume it’ll be a permanent part of his AT&T getup. And he’ll no doubt keep visiting the Westland House during tournament week, though he missed stopping by this year, says Stella Bennett, the home’s administrator, who arranged for Murray to get the hat.

“We were all kind of disappointed. It hadn’t been very long since we lost Helen, so I don’t know — maybe he’s kind of sensitive about it. I hope he doesn’t forget about us. But we were thrilled when he wore the hat at the tournament this year.”

Murray will no doubt show up again, usually unannounced, and Bennett and her crew will do their best to be ready for him. Which is never easy.

“It’s kind of scary. He’ll go anywhere, and it’s hard to keep him [in line],” she says. “If they’re able, the patients will call their families and say, ‘Guess who’s standing here with me?’ And nobody would believe it. He’s very down-to-earth. He’ll rub their feet, rub their backs, flirt with the little old ladies and just be himself. And he’ll stay a long time. He’s really neat.

“One cancer patient last year couldn’t eat. He was staying at Quail Lodge and ordered all kinds of stuff for her, to see if he could get her to eat. He put her in one of my office chairs, started running down the hall. I knew he was going to flip her over, but he didn’t. I couldn’t control him, that’s for sure.”

No one could — the man is one big heart wrapped in unyielding energy. “He’s very quiet about his philanthropic side, he doesn’t want any publicity over it, but he’s very generous to the community here, as he is basically anyplace he touches down. He’s very much into that,” Sluman says. “He’s just as quality a person as you’re ever gonna meet.”

Though he lives in New York City and spends as little time in Hollywood itself as possible (“You always want to rent in L.A.,” he was overheard telling Simpson on the practice tee at Poppy Hills, “because it could fall into the ocean any day”), Murray pretty much owns the keys to the City of Monterey and is welcome wherever he goes — if he’s not in disguise, that is. Sluman recalls him going incognito one night as they drove through the Del Monte Forest gates. “The guard came out, and Bill was all dressed up as Yogi Bear. He rolled down his window and the guy didn’t know it was him. Bill yelled out, ‘Does anyone know the way to Jellystone Park?’ The ranger was not very happy; he kind of came rushing to the front. My wife was laughing hysterically. He then sees it’s Bill and said, ‘Good evening, Mr. Murray.’ Just stuff like that. He’s just so quick-witted and likes to have a lot of fun. There are literally books Scott and I could write if we could remember all the fun stuff.”

Back at Spyglass, the memories kept coming — more Sluman-teasing twenties in the cup, more detours to the ropes or even beyond them to track down a wayward shot and yak with the public, more wry comments thrown into the damp air like gems that glimmer for a split second and, if you’re not paying attention, are gone forever:

—From the forest wide right of the 16th fairway, as Sluman’s partner lined up a recovery shot from jail: “Everyone who doesn’t have coverage, move back. All gypsies move forward.”

—On a green’s edge as the same guy lined up a birdie putt, pulling people out of the crowd to create a pinkie chain: “Come on, let’s show some pinkie love! We’ve got the pinkies working for you!”

—After hitting the pin on No. 12 at Spyglass, then making a bogey: “It should have been a one.”

—After one of his own stellar recovery shots: “That was just too strong, too powerful, too magnificent. I’m shedding a tear, that was so good.”

—To a woman behind another green: “I really love what you’ve done with your hair. Looks great.”

—After putting out at No. 18 and facing a gantlet of autograph hounds: “Does anyone have a glass of wine?” Somebody did — in a plastic cup — and it was offered up willingly. Murray chugged it down, and why not? He’d just witnessed a near-death experience on the previous hole, the lovely, oceanside par-4 17th.

Murray was fixing to line up his putt when a thunderclap filled the air — the crackling sound of a 70-foot-tall Monterey pine giving up the ghost. All heads turned as the tree tipped and caught the branch of another tree, arresting its fall just long enough to let a slew of spectators get out of the way. Murray rushed toward the commotion as the pine crashed into a greenside bunker. As they say on the 6 o’clock news, “Miraculously, no one was hurt” — though one mega-relaxed fan came close.

“At least 80, maybe 100 people, scattered, and there was one guy asleep behind a tree,” Murray told a local TV newscaster later. “We looked over and all we could see was one guy. The tree fell all around him, not even a foot away. Sometimes good things happen on the golf course, sometimes bad things happen. Is someone gonna live, and someone gonna die?” Suddenly he was Zen Bill again, like the guy in The Razor’s Edge — one of Murray’s rare serious Hollywood turns.

“And you came through it OK?” the reporter asked, hopefully rhetorically.
“I’m OK, except for when I stopped the tree,” Murray replied, deadpan. “It was cool. All of a sudden it felt real Christmasy.”

After the commotion settled, Murray calmly returned to the task at hand — his putt — and calmly drained it. Then he turned to the fallen hulk of a tree and, like the preacher in Caddyshack, got his righteous on. “Come on, big pine tree! You want some of me? Come on!”

There came no answer. Mr. Murray had won again. He usually does. Longtime AT&T fans will remember his infamous 18th hole bunker waltz with a gal named Kitty Ragsdale at Pebble back in the late ’90s, which prompted a rant from then-PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman that Murray’s antics were bad for golf.

Unbowed, Murray mocked Beman at the very same hole a few years later. He got away with it, and thank God — comic genius like his and a sometime stodgy game like this don’t intersect nearly often enough, and Clint Eastwood and the rest of the Pebble Beach Company bigwigs know it. They let Murray keep on winning.

He can’t yet say that for the AT&T Pro-Am itself however. He and Simpson have made it to the Sunday round at Pebble several times over the years, including 2006, but this time around it was three-and-out for them — both Sluman and Simpson finished far north of par at Spyglass that day, and it didn’t get much better at Poppy the next. So it’s wait ’til next year for a guy who’s got the game to get there, if only his partner could find the form that won him the AT&T — and a U.S. Open title — back in the 1980s.

Then again, the very next week, Murray and Simpson teamed up to take the hardware at the Champions Tour’s Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am in Florida. Murray called it “a victory for all humankind.” Who knows what an AT&T breakthrough would mean — peace throughout the universe, perhaps? — and where it would rank in his list of career accomplishments, perhaps alongside, or even above, his Academy Award nomination for Lost in Translation?

Nobody knows, but this much is clear: Bill Murray loves golf, breathes it and makes it his comedy muse like no other actor alive. And it’s always waiting for him in the mist and majesty of the Monterey Peninsula.

How lucky can we get? FG