If you play golf, you’ve probably not played a round where someone
didn’t recite a line from “Caddyshack.” On Tuesday here in south
Florida, I heard every one of them.
From the time we pulled through the gates to the time we left the
course, it was a tribute to the movie. Because one of the perks of
covering this BCS title game is that the Orange Bowl set it up for the
media to play at Grande Oaks Golf Club. That might not mean anything to
you, but it’s the course where they filmed “Caddyshack.”
And since I’ve seen the movie 500 times, it was like going to a
museum. The Grille Room, the front steps, the flower bed for the most
famous scene in the movie when Bill Murray was winning The Masters in
his mind.
The good people at Grande Oaks put out signs on the course with the most memorable lines, not that anyone needed them.
“License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations.”
“Why don’t you improve your lie, sir.”
“Do you take drugs, Danny?”
It was way cool.
Now you may say that it’s no big deal because when you see the
movie it doesn’t look like a great course. But Wayne Huizenga bought
the course in 2005 and it’s really nice now. In fact, the greens were
in my top five of courses I’ve played.
We were like tourists, snapping pictures of everything we could. I
sent a couple of phone pictures to friends, and my buddy Nick Gilliam
started texting me back different lines from the movie.
“Hey, Wang, don’t tell ’em you’re Jewish. This is a private club.”
Yes, we did the whole “na, na, na, na, na, na” routine on the putting green.
What made the whole experience even better ” Dr. Football shot a
77 and won the tournament. And the winners of the individual and team
contests received neat glass trophies with sayings from the movie on
them.
“Gambling is illegal at Bushwood and I never slice.”
