Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf - Hardcover

Murray, Bill; Peper, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568957890 ISBN 13: 9781568957890

Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc, 1999

Synopsis

One of the funniest, most beloved, and most often quoted entertainers in the world tells his tale of Life and Golf and somehow surviving both--one pilgrim's bemused path through the doglegs.

With his brilliant creation, groundskeeper Carl Spackler, and the outrageous success of the film Caddyshack firmly etched into the American consciousness, Bill Murray and golf have become synonymous. Now Bill tells the hilarious tale behind the tale.

The love of the game was with Bill long before Carl uttered the now famous words, "Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the Masters champion." Born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, Bill felt the lure of the links at a tender age. Following his older brothers Ed and Brian into the rarified world of private country club golf as a caddy, Bill learned life lessons at the caddyshack. "How to smoke, curse, play cards.  But more important, when to."

And long before he caught the acting and writing bug, Bill protected the Evanston Community Golf Course from gophers and golfers as a greenskeeper: "There must be a bent chromosome somewhere in man that urges him to wound that which he cannot conquer--" And throughout his career, the pull of the links has been constant. A summa cum laude graduate of golf school, specializing in the flop shot, Bill's escapades on the Pro-Am golf circuit, at Augusta National, and as a fan at the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Western Open make for an irresistible read.

Filled with the kind of deadpan and dead-on hilarity that only Bill Murray could create, Cinderella Story is an up-by-the-bootstraps chronicle of a man, his muse, and his critical examination of our society's fascination with a little white ball.

About this title

Review:

To many, Bill Murray is the star of movies like Ghostbusters (reissued with certain scenes deleted and a Mystery Science Theatre-style commentary in 1999). But to golf aficionados, Murray is the clown in godawful "Hee-Haw-aiian" golf garb who plays shamelessly to the crowds at charity tee-offs from Pebble Beach to the Greater Milwaukee Open. And there is only one Bill Murray role, the gopher-snuffing, turf-smoking greenskeeper Carl Spackler in Caddyshack, whose fantasy of golf heroism gives this book its title. "This crowd has gone deadly silent," Spackler mutters with club in hand and no crowd in sight, "a Cinderella story outta nowhere--former greenskeeper and now about to become the Masters champion!"

Cinderella Story is really two books. The first is a string of outrageously digressive anecdotes about Murray's club-wielding adventures with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer ("Incandescent ... he and Patton were born to lead armies"), Mike Ditka, John Denver, Chi Chi Rodriguez ("He had more fun playing golf than any person I'd ever seen."), Clint Eastwood, and Michael Jordan ("Relax," Murray tells himself, "his nickname is 'air,' not 'sand.'"). The prose style is mock-hepcat, insanely allusive, and very smart, like his screen persona.

This book is also the amusing, affecting autobiography of a kid who started out caddying for 60 cents a half-hour with his brothers--they got busted for giving a blind golfer three hole-in-one trophies--and wound up in showbiz. There are lots of showbiz anecdotes too, especially about Caddyshack, "arguably the greatest film ever made, although perhaps that's a drunken argument," as Murray observes. He'll get no argument from golfers, who will thrill to his expert ridicule of their mutual passion. --Tim Appelo

From the Inside Flap:

One of the funniest, most beloved, and most often quoted entertainers in the world tells his tale of Life and Golf--and of somehow surviving both.
With his brilliant creation, groundskeeper Carl Spackler, and the outrageous success of the film "Caddyshack firmly etched into the American consciousness, Bill Murray and golf have become synonymous. Filled with Murray's trademark deadpan and dead-on humor, Cinderella Story chronicles his love affair with golf from the life lessons he learned as a caddy--"how to smoke, curse, play cards. But more important, when to"--to his escapades on the Pro-Am golf circuit at the Augusta National and as a fan at the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Western Open. An up-by-the-bootstraps tale of a man, his muse, and our society's fascination with a little white ball, Cinderella Story is one pilgrim's bemused path through the doglegs.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1568957890
• ISBN 13: 9781568957890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 205