FBR OPEN

February 2, 2006

Bill Murray

Will you describe that sensation at 16 and will you replay it for us? It is dramatic from the video of it.

BILL MURRAY: It sort of speaks for itself. The miracle of a bladed tee shot through the green, a skunked second shot to the edge, and then finally the whole golf game coming together and dropping it in from off the green, sinking it from what appears to be I paced it off, it's over 2,000 feet. It's just part of the miracle that is F. B. R., I guess.

Q. Did you have some fun today?

BILL MURRAY: I was having fun then (laughter). It's fun, it's fun. You know, there's a lot of people out here.

Q. How were the crowds?

BILL MURRAY: You know. Are you a local?

Q. Yes.

BILL MURRAY: So you know.

Q. Can you go into more detail?

BILL MURRAY: There's crowds, you know. You know, you wish you were playing a little better. It's only really fun when you're playing well enough to enjoy yourself, otherwise I think people are a little embarrassed for you, and you're embarrassed for yourself.

Q. (Inaudible).

BILL MURRAY: You know, if you see enough if you have cable TV, you should remember some lines from my movies.

Q. Are you playing next week?

BILL MURRAY: Yeah, I'm playing next week in Monterey.

Q. Did anybody stun you with a line, because they've gone pretty deep on some of these lines? Did anybody go really deep, maybe they don't have cable TV and they've paid money going to see a recent motion picture?

BILL MURRAY: No, people don't stun me saying lines from the movies. I can be surprised. But what really hurts is when they say something personal about the way I dress or the way I golf.

Q. They tend to love you regardless of whether you hit a good shot or a bad shot. You like the mulligans.

BILL MURRAY: No, I don't like mulligans. They made me take one on the 1st hole because I was new, the new guy, but I don't play mulligans myself.

Q. What's taken you so long to finally come to Phoenix?

BILL MURRAY: I guess my rage over the diamondbacks' ability to win a World Series when the Cubs have come oh, so close. That's one good reason.

Q. What did you think of the course?

BILL MURRAY: I wish I had played it yesterday. When you don't know where you're going, you're sort of at the mercy of the course a little bit. And my caddie is I think he's dead by now. I had a couple guys following him the last few holes. He had no idea what we were up to. He goes to Brophy High School, so it was a Brophy kid.

Q. What was your swing thought on the chip at 16?

BILL MURRAY: I was just looking for a ball to hit, you know, hoping for something in the strike zone, and I got it. I was lucky enough to drive it into the cup.

Q. Can you talk about being a greens keeper when you were growing up? Did that start your love for the game?

BILL MURRAY: Well, I was a caddie before I was a greenskeeper, so greenskeeping was just like a more spiritual involvement with the game because really you're grounded in the earth even a little bit more than a barefoot caddie because you have to repair other people's damage. You're in a right to life situation with gophers and pests that are attacking greens.

Q. Sounds like a Cinderella story.

BILL MURRAY. Well, it's not all gravy, I'll tell you that. There's some hardships.

Q. With Caddyshack and what it's meant to people, people rate it as the Top 5 sports movies of all time, is there a thought of maybe coming back, let's do it again, let's maybe do a Star Wars theme type of deal?

BILL MURRAY: Do Caddyshack again?

Q. Do a Caddyshack II?

BILL MURRAY: They did a Caddyshack II. It's guys like you that made Caddyshack II.

Q. Revise it one more time with all the technology that's out there.

BILL MURRAY: You know, I'm under a doctor's care (laughter). You know, Caddyshack was a great thing. There were some extraordinary people in it, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield, the guy who played the bishop, these are people who have passed away. They were great people, great actors and lots of fun, and it was an unusual thing. Can't you be happy with having seen it and watched it? You want it again? You're one of those guys that wants to make love twice a week. Once is plenty (laughter).

Q. How much satisfaction do you get coming out here and entertaining the crowd?

BILL MURRAY: You know, it's fun. A lot of it is autographs and that's not fascinating. Once you get the spelling right I feel pretty good about my spelling anyway. But signing autographs is okay, but it's more fun to interact with the people. The more interacting and less autographs the more fun it is, but it's fun. I have a good time doing it. I didn't know what to expect, and there's a lot of people and it's sunny and people are excited.

Q. You didn't expect the crowds to be as vociferous and vocal?

BILL MURRAY: Crowd control is my business. If you're playing better, crowd control is easy.

Q. I guess someone could have surprised you with a Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers line.

BILL MURRAY: It doesn't surprise me. It's pleasing. I'm glad people like the stuff I've done. That's nice.

Q. It's easier for you to communicate with them on the golf course than for them to communicate with you?

BILL MURRAY: I don't know about that. They have the advantage because they know my name and I don't know everyone by name yet, but it's okay. It's fun. You know, as long as people are nice, it's fun to go out. It gets strange with the sort of pro autograph people, they make it weird because they're not here for the same reasons anyone else is. They're not here to have fun, they're working. But you're here to have fun, right?

Q. Are you going to come back next year?

BILL MURRAY: We'll see.

Q. If they invite you?

BILL MURRAY: We'll see. We've got to settle up the scorecard bets in the bar and if I lost a lot of money, I won't be able to afford to come back.

Q. Who do you like this year to win the FBR Open?

BILL MURRAY: I like my friends to win. I like Herron or Sluman, or Vijay Singh is a good guy and a great golfer. I think David Toms is a scary golfer, he's good. I don't know who's favored.

Q. Phil?

BILL MURRAY: Well, we played behind Phil. I can beat Phil. He's won here a couple of times, right? So he's probably a heavy favorite. He came in super second last week or something. And Olazabal, I like to watch Olazabal. He's a cool guy.

Q. If the Dalai Lama had something to say about your round of golf today, what would he say?

BILL MURRAY: He'd say I tried. That's the important thing.

End of FastScripts.