Bill Murray pokes his head into stranger’s empty car while teasing his new golf show: ‘Get a load of this’
Bill Murray pokes his head into stranger’s empty car while teasing his new golf show: ‘Get a load of this’
Derek LawrenceFri, October 23, 2026 at 1:30 PM UTC
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Bill Murray in ‘A Course Called Ireland’Credit: Paramount+Key Points -
Bill Murray and Tom Coyne discuss their new Paramount+ series.
A Course Called Ireland follows the pair on a golfing trip around the country.
Murray says going to Ireland feels like attending a family member’s wake.
Talking to Bill Murray about his new Ireland-set golfing show is almost as much of an adventure as traveling around Ireland to golf.
Premiering Sunday on Paramount+, the Skydance Sports-produced A Course Called Ireland follows author Tom Coyne and the eccentric Ghostbusters star as they spend 16 days exploring the country and occasionally teeing off. Now, Coyne and Entertainment Weekly are following Murray. During a Zoom interview, Murray is on his phone, walking around Boston and getting better acquainted with the city as his son, Luke, prepares for his first season as the head basketball coach at Boston College.
“Let me stop moving,” he says, before turning the phone away from himself, the first of many times he will do so. “There’s a half-moon up there, did you guys know? And it’s a sunny day here, a little breezy down by the waterfront. This is the harbor, so I guess this is where they threw the tea once upon a time.”
Murray then gets back to chatting about his time in Ireland, but gets distracted by a beautiful classic red car parked nearby. With no one in the vehicle and the windows down, Murray pokes his head and phone in to get a closer view. “Get a load of this,” he exclaims. “He leaves the windows open and goes, ‘C’mon, you gotta come and look at it.’ Awesome, huh? They didn’t have a lot of bucket seats in 1962.”
Chris O’Dowd and Bill Murray in ‘A Course Called Ireland’Credit: Paramount+
The Murray experience is old hat for Coyne, the best-selling author of 2009’s A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee, a travel memoir about his time walking 1,100 miles around Ireland in search of the ultimate golf trip. He recognizes that he upgraded with this iteration, considering he actually rode in vehicles, stayed at castles, and had colorful company in Murray.
“Bill’s great to travel with,” Coyne shares. “I mean, yes, you do build in a little more time for people wanting to meet and talk to him, and Bill takes an interest and engages with them. That can mean you need to compensate for what we call ‘Murray time,’ and so things may start or end a bit late. But I love traveling with Bill because he’s so genuinely curious, just like as he was talking to us now and he noticed that car — how many people walk past that car? He has this awareness and curiosity about the world around you. It’s a great reminder to me to stop and take the time to see what’s going on, and it’s harder and harder to do that in the world that we live in.”
The duo is quick to insist that A Course Called Ireland isn’t just about playing golf, to the point that Murray believes they were on the courses less than he thought. Instead, they spotlighted people they met while hanging at pubs or strolling through the streets. And some of those memorable characters were enlisted as narrators of the show.
“We wanted Ireland and Irish voices to be right at the front,” Coyne explains. “This isn’t Bill and Tom’s crazy adventure. This is about this person’s home when two people from out of town show up and how we all experience it together.”
Murray says the best way to describe going to Ireland is “like going to a wake.”
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“Everyone looks like one of my cousins,” he explains. “The first time I went over there, I was like, Oh my God, I feel like Aunt Beth died. So you feel a sense of comfort there, and the people look at you and go, ‘Yeah, they’re Americans, but they’re Irish.’ The Irish are very gracious, and I think they feel a little button bursting when people whose families emigrated to America come back to Ireland and say, ‘This is where we came from, and we’re proud of this.’”
Murray calls the country the “absolute best place to golf” because, “even if you’re playing poorly, it’s so beautiful.”
“I don’t know many people that go there and don’t like it,” he adds. “Although my late father-in-law said that Dublin reminded him of Indianapolis. I know it was a compliment coming from him.”
Jason Kelce, Tom Coyne, and Bill Murray on ‘A Course Called Ireland’Credit: Christopher Barr/Paramount+
With guests like former NFL star Jason Kelce popping into A Course Called Ireland, Murray recognizes he’s continuing to grow his impressive list of sports projects, having already starred in Caddyshack, Kingpin, and Space Jam. But now he’s looking to expand his holiday influence.
“I’ve got Christmas kind of covered and surrounded; I’ve got Groundhog Day,” he says, also referencing 1988’s Scrooged and 2015’s A Very Murray Christmas. “I feel like I should just go for all of them.”
He says Halloween is on his to-do list, and A Course Called Ireland might finally get him ready for Chicago’s famous St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“I’ve been asked to lead that parade,” he shares. “Sometime I’ll have to do that. It’s a lot of responsibility.”
Speaking from experience, good luck following him around!
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
