Bill Murray and Kelly Slater mid-way through 18 holes. Photos: Walter Iooss
Bill Murray is the greatest person in the world. It’s science, rigorously peer tested and proven over and over again. There is no one else on earth that possesses the coolness that Bill Murray does. That’s why Whalebone Magazine, one of the finest things between paper covers that exists in the magazine world, devoted an entire issue to him. And guess who co-starred in the main interview feature of the Bill Murray issue? Our very own Kelly Slater, a man who, while cool in his own right, does not hold a candle to the coolness of Mr. Bill Fucking Murray. “Has anyone ever spent the day with Bill Murray and not smiled all day?” asked Kelly on Instagram. “A memorable day in my life.”
Murray and Slater spent the day together, playing 18 holes of golf at The Palencia Club in Florida. Whalebone brought in legendary sports photographer, Walter Iooss, to shoot the issue, and Taylor Steele was on hand for a few behind the scenes clips like the one you see here:
“The following are a few scenes from a recent day on a random golf course in Florida,” the feature, entitled Golf Clap, begins. “Kelly Slater, 11x World Surfing Champion, was looking for a golfing buddy and ended up paired with a gentleman named Bill who had been stretching on the practice putting green for a few hours. They ended up riding 18 together. Walter Iooss, legendary photographer, happened to be at the clubhouse that day doing a tequila presentation to prospective clients and Taylor Steele, award-winning filmmaker and current resident golf pro, was doing laps in the club pool. He kindly decided to dry off and video a few of the holes for Bill and Kelly to analyze and support swing improvement. The group eventually found each other and the day turned out rather nice.”
The pages that follow are comprised of a conversation between the two as they whack balls around the course. Here’s an excerpt, just to whet your appetite:
KELLY: So, Caddyshack. How did Caddyshack come around? How did you end up with that part? Did you write any piece of that? Were you ad-libbing a lot of it?
BILL: Yeah, I only had one line that was in my script. I was just sort of tossed in there. They were shooting in Davie, Florida and I was working on Saturday Night (Live). I came and did this one little scene and then they called me, “You want to come down and do another one?” I did that three times, three different times and I did more stuff. My brother was writing for (Caddyshack), with Harold Ramis, who directed it.
KELLY: A lot of that stuff was just natural because you were around the caddy shack.
BILL: A lot of that was stuff we knew—it all came pretty easy. We had a lot of fun. There were a lot of fun people in that movie. That was a lot of fun. We lost some people on that.
KELLY: What do you mean?
BILL: It was too much fun.
KELLY: Too much, yeah.
BILL: We lost some people, some good people never were the same after that. It’s so funny when you’re with Rodney [Dangerfield].
KELLY: He was incredible.
BILL: He was wild.
KELLY: Cut through. (Points to short cut to the next tee box.)
BILL: It’s all coming together, baby.
KELLY: Yeah, Rodney was wild, huh?
BILL: Poppers and blow.
KELLY: Jesus Christ.
BILL: Here we go (Hits ball exceptionally far). You see, I found this place out by Malibu that was an old, tiny little old motel, like a ’50s kind of motel. They tore it down in the name of building something new. They had a side building that was a discotheque. I remember when we were working on some dumb thing, I showed Rodney the place and the next time I came, Rodney was living there. He also lived, in the compound at Davie where Caddyshack was filmed, it was like a student housing kind of thing, like a dormitory, but he was so set there, he would go back there and stay months at a time in that place. Wild.
See more from Whalebone on their website, follow them on Instagram @whalebonemagazine, and purchase the issue here.
