PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- The first rule to remember when following Bill Murray is to get there early. It seemed like a good idea at the time to catch up with the most famous amateur to play in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since Jack Lemmon used to chase the cut here years and several different tournament names ago. Just cruise out to No. 10 and watch the madness unfold on the back nine. No sweat, right? Wrong. First of all, there's no easy way to get to No. 10 at Pebble Beach. Unless you're a seal or you rent a kayak and paddle in, you walk every one of those 3,487 yards starting with the 18th green down to the 10th tee. Plus, you're doing it dodging the thousands of fans who seemingly have the same idea as you. And you're not just dodging them, you're dodging their bags, their water bottles, their cigar smoke -- and that's just the women. That 20-minute cushion you gave yourself to be early? You have a better chance of learning what Murray whispered to Scarlett Johannson at the end of Lost In Translation than you do of getting to the 10th tee in time to watch him hit. But you do finally see that glorious red beret -- you knew it would be a red beret for some reason -- as you finally reach the 10th green. You're there just in time to watch him drain what looked like a 15-foot birdie putt and skip, jump and high-five everyone on the green. So you take a breath, relax and get ready to watch what happens when Bill Murray plays a round of golf. The 11th hole Amy Walters thought she had it made. In a perfect spot, she got Murray's attention as he walked to the 11th tee. He had just finished signing one autograph when Walters, a 16-year-old who plays golf for Sacred Heart Catholic High School in Monterey, asks Murray to sign her scorecard. He stops, looks at her and points to her shirt and asks, "Did you spill something?" You watch it unfold in slow motion because you know how this is going to end. Walters looks down and Murray's finger races right up and playfully nudge her nose as she falls for the oldest gag in the books. Kids. The fans yell and engage Murray at every turn. As Murray talks to one man, a mom helps her baby stand up. The proud father beams. "The child looks just like you," Murray yells to the man. The mom and dad laugh as the man replies, "It's not mine." While standing over a putt Jeff Sluman and Scott Simpson already missed, he asks, "What are my chances if you guys can't make it?" Turns out, none. He misses and yells, "Anyone want a golf ball?" as he gently tossed it into the crowd. Simpson makes the comebacker to save par as Murray lets out a huge and loud sigh of relief as they remain at 18 under for the tournament. The 12th hole The good thing about being Bill Murray is you can crash any party on Pebble Beach. A group sits outside a house between the 11th green and 12th tee and while waiting for the Brady Bunch (New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his dad are the celebs in the group in front of Murray), he walks over to the house and gets a Bloody Mary. A caterer grabs it and spruces it up a little and Murray makes his way to the tee. A quick note how big of a draw Murray is -- XM has a reporter assigned to him. So while Murray's standing over the ball, the radio guy is in full broadcast mode, detailing Murray's using a 6-iron and how the swing looks nice and just carrying on as Murray swings and misses the green. Murray glares at the guy and makes a zipping motion across his mouth to the reporter. He quietly finishes his report. Murray misses a putt and goes to hit again when, he's told he's not away. "Is that a rule or just etiquette?" Etiquette, he's told. "Etiquette? We're well beyond that," he says as he walks over and gives Sluman, the player who should have been putting, a big hug.
The 13th Hole As he walks to the tee, he hands the half-empty Bloody Mary to a female fan and says, "Do me a favor and polish that off, will ya?" He steps the tee, adjusts his beret -- which says USA on the front and is the same as the U.S. athletes wore in the opening Olympics ceremony last night -- and boldly announces, "This is for the brave men and women over in … Torino." He then pushes his drive to a ridge on the right and says, "Well, I want to be in the mountains." A cameraman keeps his focus on Murray and suddenly, Murray is feeling frisky. He starts playing, going at the camera getting closer and closer. As the cameraman peels back, Murray steps on the cable stopping the cameraman dead in his tracks. Murray and the crowd laugh. But that's not enough. Murray grabs the cable and starts playfully tapping the cameraman with it. The cameraman keeps playing along, trying to escape, but Murray charges and the cameraman falls back. Murray wraps him with the cable and stands over him, a foot on his conquered victim. "No, you are man," Murray says. The crowd roars. After David Feherty interviews him (Carl Spackler is, of course, brought up), he walks down the right side of the fairway as a woman yells, "Want me to peel you a grape?" as she holds out a stem of green grapes. "I'll take a grape" says Murray as he grabs the stem, shares them with a CBS camerawoman and walks up the fairway. Something you don't see everyday, two kids -- maybe two or three years old -- playing in a sand trap that is part of someone's back yard. But that someone happens to be Michael Fitzpatrick, a venture capitalist, who is playing in the tournament. Needless to say, his palatial estate on the 13th fairway is hosting quite a party. By the corner of the green, Murray sidles up to the crowd and hops in a Bacardi and Coke inflatable canoe. A group hands him some hats with the number 13 on front and their country club name on the back. Murray tries to read it: "Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga." The crowd explodes as Murray throws the green hat on and gets out of the canoe. Murray's struggles on the greens continue and after missing another 3-footer for par, he throws the ball into the ocean. As he walks off the green, a CBS assistant to makes sure she stays out of Murray's way. He settles down and looks over as his partner, Scott Simpson, stands over a 6-footer for birdie. "Scott you have to make this putt," he says. "I put you in a very difficult position. If you make this, the crowd will go insane. If not, they’ll probably hang you." Simpson makes it, the crowd roars and Murray hugs his partner. "I made such a big mistake but that little fellow pulled me out. I'm sorry I'm making all this racket. Slu has an important birdie to make as well," Murray says. "Please make it little wildcat." Sluman calmly putts it and before it hits the bottom of the cup, he whips around and smiles at Murray, he runs up, hoists him over his shoulder and carries him to the 14th tee. As Simpson watches, he says, "Why's he carrying him? He should have carried me." The 14th hole Murray loads up on cookies and granola bars at the contestant snack stand and walks over to the crowd handing them out. Two little kids have snuck out from under the ropes hoping for an autograph. One of the children just hands him something to sign and he asks, "Is that how you ask nicely?" She sheepishly, and politely, asks again and he happily signs. To the right, there's another big house with a huge gathering in their back yard. One of the partiers is a very large, yellow lab who looks like it hasn't missed too many meals in its day. The happy pooch is lying on its side and Murray lies down with his head on the pooch's big belly and closes his eyes. Murray's still struggling, though. An errant tee shot left him in the right rough and between the trees and the rough, Murray's sitting five after flying the green. His lob wedge gets to the top of the hill and rolls back down. His second attempt at a lob wedge goes up and, as someone yells "Get in the hole!" it lands right on the sprinkler hole. Murray raised his arms and doffs his cap to the cheers. So, Simpson once again must make a putt to save the team. Murray has a secret weapon. "Andrew, where's that chicken?" he yells to his caddy. Andrew flips the rubber chicken to Murray, who stands in front of Simpson and squeaks the fowl with the chant "Let's go Scott!" It works. Simpson drains the putt and gets a kiss on the cheek and a squeak from the chicken. The 15th hole The 15th hole features a group that calls itself Club 15. This is a group with shirts, hats and loves to loudly cheer the amateurs on. Before Murray hits, they chant "Wednesday's winner" in appreciation of him winning the 3M Celebrity Shootout. They also presented him a Club 15 floppy hat, which he proudly put on. (A few other Club 15 highlights. With Tom Brady, they chanted "Tom Brady Junior" since he was playing with his dad. After the New England quarterback belted his drive, he ran over to the Club 15 crew and signed the Patriots No. 12 jersey one of the Club 15 members had. Another good one? When David Manougian stepped up, they yelled "We love The Golf Channel" to the network president.) After Murray -- with a rubber chicken sticking out of his back pocket -- walked up to his second shot on No. 15, which was to the right of the green, a man yelled, "Bill, hit it here and you get two" and promptly had his very buxom female friend wearing a very tight tank top stand up. Murray could only smile before hitting a soft chip that stopped 6 feet short of the hole.
As Murray walked down the fairway, a man asked Bill to sign his son's cast. Five-year-old Ryan Addiego peered out from under the canopy of the jogger stroller and smiled as Murray asked around for a sharpie to sign the red cast that started just below his knee and went all the way to his toes. "How'd you do this?" Murray asked. "Skiing," Ryan said. "Skiing? You're an animal," Murray said. There's a danger of sitting too close to the action sometimes. While Murray cleaned the green in front of Sluman's putt, he'd walk over to towards the fans, start talking to one and throw the debris at another. Once again, Simpson needed to make a putt to save the team. Once again, he did. Once again, Murray hugged him. The 17th hole One of Murray's patented moves is to sign autographs as he keeps walking. The comedy of it is the people always freak out as he takes their scorecard, book, picture, whatever and keeps walking as he signs. He usually just signed and then dropped it on the ground. The reaction of the fans thinking he just stole their book and pen before realizing they actually did get the autograph never got old. After Murray hit his tee shot on the famed 17th, which was just short of the green, a woman kept going "Pssst! Pssst!" Persistently, she kept trying to get his attention. It finally worked. "What?" Murray asked. "Come here," she said. Murray carefully sidled over to her. "What do you want?" he asked. "You look like someone on an episode of Law & Order." She handed him a newspaper that has the pairings on it. "Will you sign this?" "That’s it? I thought you were in real estate," he said and walked away. Murray, clearly happy with his shot, walks up hands on hips. He's about to get to his ball when a very loud whistle normally performed by construction crews as women walk by stops him in his tracks. He flexes and poses. After Simpson misses his birdie, Murray says, "A lot of pressure on me now." Murray, who gets a stroke on the hole, needs to two-putt at worst so they can go to 19 under. He knocks his putt to within 6 inches and boldly claims "I can make this with my eyes closed." And then he does. The 18th hole It's supposed to be a simple thing, a group photo of the foursome. Nothing is simple with Bill Murray. He hauls over the trash box and calls in everyone for the shot, including the sign boy and girl, the camerawoman, the cable guy, the CBS assistant, the caddies and volunteers. It's amazing the pros can play as well as they can considering the commotion the fans cause with Murray in the group. Simpson and Sluman brush it off with ease for the most part. Only once -- when the crowd kept yelling for Murray while Sluman was trying to tee off -- did they even step off the ball. Murray struggles on the hole, sending his drive sailing onto the beach on the left, then sending his next one long. After his chip onto the green is met with silence, he loudly yells "Thank you!" His putt that fails to go in is again met with silence and again, he yells "Thank you!" He finally putts it in the hole and the crowd roars. Murray smiles, waves and says nothing as his team finished 19 under. Postround For all the fun Murray has on the course, it's often overlooked what else he does when he comes to the tournament. He works with the Boys and Girls Club. He visits hospices and hospitals. He does countless other unnoticed and underappreciated charity work. Case in point, after his round, he went to see Jennifer Hill, a woman he invited to today's round who was sitting in her wheelchair off the 18th green. Murray met her last year in the hospital and talked with her for 2½ hours the other day. He learned she hadn't had much of an appetite for the hospital food and sent over a catered basket from local legendary stop Bernadus. Hill, who has been battling a serious illness for the past few years, stood up and handed Murray a small arrangement of flowers as she hugged him. "It's all I could carry," she said. "That's all you could carry? Well, I guess I'll take them then," he joked. They chatted for about five minutes and then he excused himself. Hill, who had her husband and two children with her, smiled as she sat down. "I can't say enough good things about him. People don't realize all the wonderful things he does when he comes here," she said. "I hope I'm around to see him again next year." From there, Murray did his television interviews and gathered the volunteers and friends and families of his foursome. He asked if they were hungry or if they'd rather just go get a drink. Since no one was really hungry, drinks at a little spot right nearby the course was the destination. "No one else really does this," said a volunteer who is among a trio who has worked with Murray for the last 11 years. "He's just a good guy." Long after the drinks were done, it was learned Murray didn't make the cut. His 19 under was one short of the cut line. It didn't matter. He already made his impact on the tournament. |
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