Kuchar builds 2-shot lead at Mayakoba Golf Classic

The first draft of the script for “Caddyshackâ€� was 200 pages long – which was nearly twice the norm for Hollywood screenplays at the time. And believe it or not, the character named Carl Spackler, the wacky and wacked out assistant greenskeeper so central to the movie in its final form, was nowhere to be found. Oh, and what about that gopher? Well, Spackler’s nemesis started out as a mere sock puppet, appearing in just one scene where the rodent pops up and steals Al Czervik’s golf ball. Those are just two of the many interesting nuggets that can be found in Chris Nashawaty’s new book, “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story.â€� Nashawaty’s book came out in April of this year. It was born of a six-page oral history he wrote about the cult classic for Sports Illustrated in 2010, three decades after its release. The book is meticulously researched – witness the 27 pages of notes at the end of the book – and pays homage to a film that tops nearly every list of funniest sports movies. But Nashawaty, who has been the film critic for Entertainment Tonight for the last 20 years, does more than just take his reader behind the scenes of an 11-week shoot filled with drama and debauchery in south Florida. Nashawaty’s book also sets the stage, so to speak, for the movie by examining the friendship between Harold Ramis, who directed the film, and his co-writers and co-conspirators, Doug Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. Their bond had been cemented about a decade earlier when National Lampoon was at its zenith and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was turning traditional comedy on its collective ear. Kenney and Ramis were fresh off the success of “Animal House,â€� which they had written with Chris Miller, when they pitched a series of irreverent comedies to Orion Pictures and Jon Peters, who was married at the time to Barbara Streisand. The one that got the greenlight became “Caddyshack,” which had its genesis in Doyle-Murray’s memories of his teenage years spent caddying at Indian Hill Club on the north shore of Chicago. Once Nashawaty turns the focus to the movie, which comes about 100 pages into the narrative, the book gains momentum. And with comic geniuses like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield on board, there were plenty of stories for him to tell. When Murray was hired to complete the “foursome,â€� as Nashawaty puts it, his character still didn’t exist, despite numerous rewrites to the script. Not to mention, with SNL about to resume production, he only had six days to devote to “Caddyshack,” but his brother, Doyle-Murray, promised him everything would work out. Much of Murray’s oft-imitated performance was ad-libbed – most notably the iconic “Cinderella Storyâ€� monologue. All the script said was: Carl, the Greenskeeper, is absently looping the heads off bedded tulips as he practices his golf swing with a grass whip. After changing the flowers to mums at Murray’s suggestion, the cameras rolled. And he did the entire sequence in one take. “I was good back in those days,â€� Murray tells Nashawaty. “I could do something when they turned the camera on. I was wired into what I was talking about. Improvising about golf was easy for me.â€� Anyone who has seen his antics at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am would certainly agree. And while he only had that one scene with the gopher puppet, Murray was frequently filmed trying to flush the critter out with a firehose he dragged around the course. It wasn’t until after filming was complete that the gopher took on a life of its own – eventually being created by a special effects company and at Peter’s suggestion assuming a bigger “roleâ€� to help to tie together the movie’s many disjointed but funny scenes. Murray loved doing battle with the gopher. “It was a time when people were making movies like the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now,â€� Murray recalls in the book. “And that was my Vietnam movie. The ridiculously inappropriate firepower I used to kill a small rodent.â€� Speaking of firepower, there was plenty at Bushwood, aka Rolling Hills Golf Club, in Davie, Florida when the final scene was shot. Peters had taken the unknowing high-ups from the club to dinner and on an evening cruise as a diversion – but the proverbial jig was up when the explosions made the TV news and prompted a pilot to radio the nearby Ft. Lauderdale airport to report a crash. The damage to the Rolling Hills — which once hosted the likes of Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath — was minimal, though. Nashawaty’s book also delves into the complicated relationships between Chase and Murray, highlighting a fight between the two at 30 Rock during the SNL days, and between Knight and Dangerfield. Knight, a decorated war hero who won two Emmys for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wasn’t exactly thrilled with being the straight man to Dangerfield’s ribald style of comedy. In the end, “Caddyshack,” wasn’t the comedic blockbuster Ramis, Doyle-Murray and Kenney had hoped, that distinction, instead, going to the movie “Airplane.” As the years have gone on, though, “Caddyshack” has more than found its niche and this book is a tribute to its popularity.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Byeong Hun An shot a 5-under 65 on Friday in the Wyndham Championship to take a one-stroke lead into the weekend. An was at 13-under 127 halfway through the PGA TOUR’s final event before the FedExCup Playoffs. Brice Garnett was a stroke back after a 64, and six players — including 2011 Wyndham winner Webb Simpson and first-round co-leader Sungjae Im — were at 9 under. Adam Svensson also was in that group after shooting the best round of the day — a 61 — and threatening to become the first player on TOUR this year to break 60. An, who shared the first-round lead with Im at 8 under, made his move up the leaderboard with three straight birdies late in his round. Finishing on the back nine, the 27-year-old South Korean who’s winless on TOUR had birdies on Nos. 3-5 and closed his second consecutive bogey-free round with four straight pars. “I came close last couple years and, you know, maybe this week might do it,” An said about that long-awaited first victory. “But still have two more days and there are a lot of players behind me. … Just do what I’ve been doing the last couple days and just hit a lot of fairways and greens and make some putts. If someone plays better than me, then he deserves to win it, but as long as I keep these bogey-free rounds going.” For a while, the story of the day was whether Svensson would become the 11th player in PGA TOUR history to break 60 — and the first since Brandt Snedeker opened this tournament last year by shooting a 59 on his way to a victory. Svensson birdied seven holes on the front nine and added two more on Nos. 12-13 to move to 9 under for the day. “I was kind of like, all right, I’m 9 under par (after No. 13) and there’s still four or five holes and a par 5,” Svensson said. “I was actually pretty calm. I thought I would be a little more nervous than I was.” His best chance to go even lower came on No. 15 but he missed a 7-foot birdie putt. Still, the 25-year-old Canadian who is winless on TOUR, had his second 61 this year. He also had one in the first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii. He started at No. 171 on the FedExCup points list but put himself in position to crack the top 125 and earn a spot in the field at the Playoff opener, THE NORTHERN TRUST, next week in New Jersey. That chase for playoff berths is a key subplot every year at Sedgefield, home of the bubble players’ last chance to make the postseason field and earn their TOUR cards for 2020, if they don’t already have them. Everyone from No. 103 to No. 137 is here, and in the Wyndham’s dozen years as the final pre-Playoff event, an average of 2.7 players have played their way into the postseason. Garnett, who at No. 121 is the very definition of a bubble player, put himself in good shape by opening the tournament with consecutive 64s, closing the second one with birdies on three of his final five holes. The pack of seven players two strokes back included two others on the Playoff bubble: Patton Kizzire, a two-time winner last year who is at No. 129 on the points list, shot a 64 that included consecutive eagles on Nos. 5 and 6. And Josh Teater, at No. 165, kept himself in contention with a 65 highlighted by five birdies — and a bogey — in a seven-hole stretch. The other storyline is the top players’ pursuit of spots in the top 10 and the Wyndham Rewards bonus money that accompanies those finishes. Nine players started this tournament with a shot at some of that cash, and at the midpoint, two of them — Simpson and Paul Casey — are in position to claim it. “I’ve got a really good plan for this golf course, a really good strategy, and … as long as we don’t get too much crazy weather coming in, going to try to execute that plan as I did the last two days,” Casey said. “Hopefully, get the speed of the putts a little bit better and make a few more birdies, and then try and figure out what everybody else is doing and attack on the last nine if I need to and try and win this thing.”

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