The “First Truly Violent Leisure Sport” Was Created in Colorado

Hunter S. Thompson was one of the most legendary and zany journalists to ever punch a typewriter key. While he is likely most well-known for being portrayed by Johnny Depp in the film ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,’ another actor, Bill Murray, befriended and portrayed the writer in a film that was released 18 years earlier called ‘Where the Buffalo Roam.’

It was this friendship that would serve as the catalyst for the pair to create what Thompson once referred to as “the first truly violent leisure sport.”

Hunter S. Thompson + Bill Murray Invented Shotgun Golf in Colorado

While Hunter S. Thompson was famous worldwide, he was perhaps most well-known on a local level as an eccentric resident of Woody Creek, Colorado, just north of Aspen.

Thompson made his presence known in the Colorado town after unsuccessfully running for mayor of Aspen on the Freak Party ticket, was a figure at Woody Creek Tavern, and unfortunately, ended his own life on February 20, 2005, at his Woody Creek home, which he called Owl Farm.

However, a few months before passing away, Thompson decided to call his friend and one-time collaborator Bill Murray, who Thompson had once tied to a chair and thrown into a swimming pool, to invent a new sport.

The call took place as Thompson was writing an article for ESPN and, discouraged with the state of professional hockey at the time, was inspired to combine the sport of golf with one of the writer’s favorite pastimes: shooting guns.

A transcript of the phone call and a description of Shotgun Golf, the game he and Murray not only conjured up on the call but also played together, would serve as the final article that the author would have published.

Essentially, one player attempts to make a hole-in-one, while another attempts to thwart the shot by literally shooting the ball into smithereens with a shotgun.

Read More: Check Out Hunter S. Thompson's Colorado Home

Check out the phone call, and a full description of the game from Thompson’s last published story here, and below you’ll find the late Gonzo journalist enjoying some target practice with another celebrity, Conan O’Brien.