Friday, 2nd February 2007 at 8:30 am

Bill Murray’s big moment

Feverpitcher gets a lot of mail from well-known people, not all of it threatening immediate legal action - and American actor Bill Murray is the latest to drop a line, with news (and a photo) of his meeting with a man South Africans will remember with great fondness: Dennis Alpert, Executive Director of the hugely successful Presidents Cup at Fancourt in 2003 (Bill and Dennis are in the centre of the photo, for the barbarians amongst you).

“Dennis was so down to earth, so real - and seemed genuinely interested in what ordinary people had to say,” reads Murray’s mail. “He even asked me about some of my movies; apparently he particularly liked ‘Groundhog Day’, which he said reminded him a lot of the time he spent in George.”

A special moment for Murray, then, particularly given Alpert’s other claim to fame: together with fellow American Jeff Clause, now heading up the dazzling new Nicklaus-designed St. Francis Links, Alpert starred as a gymnast in the 1984 Olympics, winning silver on the parallel bars, with Clause taking a bronze on the pommel horse. Alpert is now back in America, although he’s still a legend at Fancourt - and idolised, it would appear, by Hollywood’s elite as well.