The wisdom of Carl Spackler

Jan. 19, 2006

Dear Leslie,

In 2003, a daily newspaper in New Mexico fired its sports editor because of a story he wrote about a Father's Day golf tournament at the local country club. The story quoted country club employee Carl Spangler saying:

"This is a hybrid ... of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent and northern California sensimilla [sic]. The amazing stuff about this is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff."

The problem: Bill Murray's character Carl Spackler uttered the same words 25 years ago in the movie "Caddyshack."

At least the sports editor had good taste in goofy movies. When you need a laugh, especially deep in winter, the goings on at Bushwood Country Club always come through.

"Cinderella story ... outta nowhere ... former greenskeeper about to become the Masters champion," Murray's mumbling, bumbling, gopher-hunting Carl Spackler intones as his scythe destroys a row of the course's chrysanthemums.

DC likes flowers much more than golf, but she loves "Caddyshack."

Spackler has become a cultural icon with his own Web site.

The brow in "Caddyshack" is decidedly low. It lives on because everyone sometimes wants to laugh from the gut rather from the frontal lobe. "Wayne's World," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and "Groundhog Day" do it for me. DC's father has traveled the world but laughs hardest at the foolishness of the English comedian Benny Hill.

We're all just 13-year-olds with wrinkles.

The universe of "Caddyshack" doesn't extend far beyond the confines of Bushwood Country Club, but it exists at most golf courses in America. For better or worse, golfers invoke "Caddyshack" because it offers a line for every occasion.

For example:

* "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

That's the last sentence in a Spackler monologue about caddying for the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas. He could see his Holiness wasn't going to tip him at the end of the round, so Spackler says, "'Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know?' And he says, 'Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness.'

"So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

The line between total consciousness and beatific delusion can be thin.

* "Be the ball."

That's the advice offered by of Zen playboy golfer Chevy Chase as Ty Webb. On the golf course, you hear that one if you've been unable to hit the ball.

* "Noonan!"

That's the name of one of the main characters in the movie, a young caddy with law school aspirations. In one scene, spectators yell his name as he is subjected to unmerciful attempts to distract him from making a putt. The word has become a taunt used in friendly matches.

My favorite all-purpose line is delivered by the pompous Judge Smails (played by Ted Knight of "Mary Tyler Moore Show" fame) the morning after he has caught Noonan in bed with his niece. One moment the judge is angrily pushing lamps off the table, the next relief gushes out of him when Noonan promises no one will ever find out.

"How about a Fresca?" says the judge.

Love, Sam

~ Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.