What is it like to play golf with Hunter S. Thompson on LSD?
If there were ever a drug to forever associate with the inimitable writing force that was the genuine American counterculture icon Hunter S. Thompson, then it was likely LSD. While Thompson was more than happy to try pretty much every intoxicant under the sun at least one time, it was acid with which most of his greatest stories are related.
Thompson had also been privy to sports and was well-known to have a deep passion for football and golf, the latter of which he enjoyed a round or two of. But what if Thompson had decided to combine his two favourites: golf and LSD? Surely, this could only be fictitious at best, but like much of Thompson’s remarkable life, the almost unbelievable feat of playing golf on acid was a reality, even if it seemed too good to be true.
This strange sport feels like such an experience that would only be privy to those privileged enough to be invited on one of Thompson’s escapades. Fortunately for the rest of us lay folk, the former Esquire editor Terry McDonnell detailed a trippy golf session with Thompson and sports journalist George Plimpton in his memoir, The Accidental Life.
Thompson had invited both McDonnell and Plimpton for a spot of golf, and Plimpton intended to interview him for The Paris Review. Thompson was insistent on the golf before any sort of journalism could take place, though, and before his two fellow writers knew it, Thompson had pulled out “three white tabs of blotter paper with an unfamiliar red symbol on them,” telling his journalist friends, “Eat these.”
McDonnell wrote” “He put one on his tongue and stuck it out at us. I took my tab and did the same back at him. When George said he wanted to concentrate on his golf, Hunter licked the third tab. ‘Ho ho… last of the batch'”. It wasn’t too long before McDonnell was “peacefully soaring” from the effects of the LSD that Thompson had given him, and the trio of writers made their way around Aspen Golf Club, getting drunk and making bets on who would win the round.
Thompson’s swing was “explosive if not smooth”, while Plimpton’s was described as “fluid”. McDonnell, meanwhile, was accused of “sandbagging” by Thompson. The betting came down to a final hole, with Thompson missing by a foot and letting “out a howl as he winged his putter into the pond.”
“The geese started honking, and Hunter ran back to the cart, pulled the 12-gauge from his golf bag and fired over the geese, and they lifted off the pond like a sparkling cloud of grey and white feathers,” McDonnell wrote. “It occurred to me as I watched the glitter blend into the fading sky that having a story to tell about acid golf with Hunter and George was probably good for my career. Hunter looked at me and said, ‘You’re higher than I am, goddamn it.’ I started laughing. Hunter seldom laughed, but he did then.”
The story by McDonnell is further proof of Thompson’s iconic cultural status, not only as a writer but as a friend, too. Always keen to live life to the fullest and experience childish joy at every opportunity – with the additional top-up of mature intoxicants, the LSD golf tale is yet another classic moment from the Fear and Loathing author’s endlessly countercultural, undoubtedly American existence.
