“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of one of the great American writers of the twentieth century and the Father of Gonzo Journalism. What better way to honor such a master of the craft than to focus on his exploits for our first “A Writer’s Tale” segment. Now the purpose of these posts is not to provide you with a general biography of a specific author, after all you have Wikipedia for that, but rather to tell you a strange or interesting tale about their life that speaks to their inspiration or character. And while you can read plenty of Hunter S. Thompson’s stories in his own words, I felt like one in particular may fly under the radar and be worth pointing out to you.
And that story? The origins of the greatest sport ever created Shotgun Golf. That’s right. Shotgun. Golf. A delightful game in which you attempt to disrupt your opponents tee-shot with your 12-Gauge. After all what fairway isn’t made better with a little buckshot.
What could make a story like that better? A 3 am conversation with Bill Murray trying to get him on board with this new American craze.
To say anymore would be to rob you of the joy of reading one of Thompson’s last stories so here are some links for you to honor Hunter S. Thompson on this February 20.
You can find the original story in the ESPN archives here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213&num=0
And Video of people shooting golf balls with shotguns here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yGkux5v_KE