Indian Hill Club, Summer of 1970

We’d like to thank Allan (Gunner) Johnson for this story.

I met Bill in the summer of 1970 at Indian Hill Club in Winnetka, Illinois (the Club which formed the base for Caddyshack). Bill was a caddy and I worked as a life guard/snack bar cook/maintenance man there. Bill would stop by the pool on occasion when it was raining and he was unable to caddy. He would tell the funniest stories. When I first saw him on SNL years later, I went nuts, yelling, “I knew that guy would end up on TV”.

To the best of my recollection we never found candy bars in the pool.

Indian Hill Club was the most fun place I ever worked. (And this is coming from a guy who worked as an actuary as a grown up) I see my former boss from there (Wally Gart: “Gator”) almost every year when I go back for a visit to Illinois (I have lived in Southern California for 40 years).

Wally’s wife, Pat, told me a few years ago that those summers ’69 and ’70) were the best days of her husband’s life. He would come home and have her laughing every night with stories of what went on that day (Gunner versus the Hose wrestling matches, Vance and the Choppers daily cartoon strip, Sunday night swim club…)

Bill owes me for several soft drinks I served him there.

indian hill golf club

One thought to “Indian Hill Club, Summer of 1970”

  1. This is so funny! I just learned the connection between Bill Murray – Indian Hill Club – and Indian Hill Country Club in the movie, “Caddy Shack”. Those summers I used to golf this course with my father who was a fireman and had guest privileges on Mondays. One time we were golfing with a caddy and I came within 2 feet of getting a hole-in-one on the par 3 pictured above. The ball actually rimmed the hole.

    Bill was not the caddy we were with but if I met him… I would have been 16 when Bill was 20.

    Another parallel I have with Bill, I was born in Evanston in St. Francis Hospital in 1954. Since his family was so Catholic, I wonder if he wasn’t born there was well rather than the widely reported Evanstaon Hospital which is a competitor?

Comments are closed.