While those of us in the Northeast collectively shiver and curse, there are thousands, nay, tens of thousands worldwide, currently basking in warmth and sunshine in short-sleeved shirts. Many of those lucky bums are out on the golf courses right now, soaking up the sun, hitting balls, and reciting lines like "Your Honor, Your Honor"; "Be the ball"; "Hey, whitey, where’s your hat?"; "While we’re young!"; "I don’t think the heavy stuff’s going to come down for a while"; "I want a hamburger, no a cheeseburger, I want a hot dog ..." "You’ll get nothing and like it"; and, without a doubt, "N-n-n-ooon-an!"

All these classic lines are from the 1980 motion picture Caddyshack, a work almost always lumped with films like Animal House in the category of "slob" humor. Caddyshack was directed by Harold Ramis, who gained notoriety not only from directing this film along with Groundhog Day and the Vacation movies, but also for acting (he was one of the Ghostbusters) and screenwriting (Analyze This, Stripes, Meatballs).

Caddyshack has become the sports comedy to which all other films of that genre are compared, and while only a handful of others come close (Slap Shot, Bull Durham), nothing is remotely comparable for giving the sport of golf so many unforgettable quotes and memories.

One could argue that the movie’s four major stars — Bill Murray, Ted Knight, Chevy Chase, and Rodney Dangerfield — reached the peak of their individual careers upon this film’s release, and each one turns in an indelible performance. Murray, as groundskeeper Carl Spackler, spends a good part of the movie focusing on the removal of one pesky gopher from the subterranean tunnels at Bushwood Country Club, although he has numerous other uproarious scenes (admiring a women’s foursome while washing golf balls, caddying for the bishop in a rainstorm, and recalling a day on the links with the Dalai Lama). Knight, the snobby judge who gets his comeuppance time and time again in spite of his desire to upgrade the clientele and standards at Bushwood, is perfect for the role, and it is difficult to imagine any other actor creating such an unforgettable character. Knight, who died of cancer in 1986 at age 62, had made his mark in TV (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Too Close for Comfort), but he was the ideal choice to play the snooty Elihu Smails, who frequently squares off with Dangerfield’s unrefined character, Al Czervik. Dangerfield, the stand-up comedian who has subsequently shown his acting chops in such flicks as Back to School and Natural Born Killers, is a riot as the land-developer Czervik, who believes that "golf courses and cemeteries are the two biggest wastes of real estate." Finally, Chase shows up as Ty Webb, the suave, golf-playing playboy who quietly shines in this underplayed role that is closer to Fletch than it is to his clueless Clark Griswold character in the Vacation movies.

All the film’s comedic antics revolve around the central character, caddy Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe), a high-school kid trying to flee his hum-drum life and win the club’s college scholarship by winning the caddies’ tournament. He is later put to the test when he reluctantly ends up participating in the film’s climactic golf match, paired with Ty Webb against the judge and his playing partner, Dr. Beeper. O’Keefe, who a year earlier had gained accolades for his role in The Great Santini with Robert Duvall, was 25 years old when he played the part of the smooth-swinging, brown-nosing teen.

Caddyshack features a host of other hilarious characters, including the judge’s grandson, Spaulding (who memorably hacks up the course while cursing incessantly, vomits through the moon roof of a limousine, and creates an uproar when he discovers an uneaten Baby Ruth bar in the club’s swimming pool); Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), the judge’s cosmopolitan niece who seduces not only Chase’s character but O’Keefe’s as well; Tony D’Annunzio (Scott Colomby), a sportsmanship- and manners-challenged caddy who serves as the model of teenaged "cool" throughout; and Maggie O’Hooligan, who plays Noonan’s girlfriend with a strange Eastern European–sounding accent. Other minor yet memorable characters include Czervik’s Asian golfing buddy, Wang ("I hear this place is restricted, Wang, so don’t tell ’em you’re Jewish, okay?"), Mrs. Smails ("Will you come loofah my stretch marks?"), and of course, the feisty gopher, whose image now can be seen on furry head covers in golf bags on nearly every public course in the US.

Caddyshack is not laugh-out-loud funny the first time you see it, but creeps up on you upon subsequent viewings. Most golfers who are fans of the movie (which is probably redundant) spew quotes from it freely and frequently whenever they’re playing a round, and it is the Citizen Kane of cinema for this circle of athletes, many of whom have viewed it at least a dozen times. The film shifts seamlessly from clubhouse comedy (Czervik: "Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? [Seeing Smails wearing the same hat:] It looks good on you, though") to high jinks on the course ("Ty, what did you shoot today?" "Oh Judge, I don’t keep score." "Then how do you measure yourself against other golfers?" "By height.") to black-tie country-club dinners (Czervik: "And tell the cook this is low-grade dog food. I’ve had better food at the ballgame, you know? I can still see marks on this steak where the jockey was hitting it") to the home bases ("This your place, Carl?" "Yeah, what do you think?" "It’s really ... awful"), with plenty of classic scenes and soliloquies in between.

Some trivia:

• Most of the dialogue in Murray’s scenes was ad-libbed, including the "Cinderella story" and the scene where Chase is "playing through" Spackler’s living room. The entire "massage" scene between Lacey and Ty at his estate was also made up on the spot.

• The actors who played Lacey and D’Annunzio carried on a two-year relationship in real life after the film wrapped.

• The actress who played Danny’s girlfriend, Maggie, was the same lass who played the mayor’s daughter (Clorette "I’m only 13!" DePasto) in Animal House.

• Caddyshack was filmed at the Rolling Hills Golf & Tennis Club in Davie, Florida, and at the Boca Raton Hotel & Country Club.

• Michael O’Keefe (Danny) later became the husband (later ex-) of rocker Bonnie Raitt, played a pro-baseball player in The Slugger’s Wife, and enjoyed a four-season stint on the sit-com Roseanne.

• Caddyshack die-hards can find round-the-clock solace at www.carlspackler.com

• In the scene where the bishop plays the best golf round of his life in a torrential rainstorm (only to be struck down by lightning after missing a putt on the 18th green), the background music is from the 1956 film The Ten Commandments; the actor who played the bishop (Henry Wilcoxon) played pharaoh’s general in that film.

• Murray and his five brothers opened a restaurant called the Murray Bros. Caddyshack at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Florida, in 2001. The eatery is "designed to look and feel like a country club gone awry," and a serve as place to "eat, drink, and be Murray." A second locale recently opened at Broadway on the Beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

In these days of gloom and chills, tonight may just be the night to head over to the video store and pick up the video or extras-enhanced DVD of Caddyshack. It won’t make you forget or forgive the good fortune of all of those gophers, er, golfers tearing up the links down in Florida or Southern California, but it will take you back nearly 25 years when a flute without holes was not a flute, and a doughnut without a hole was a Danish.

What an incredible Cinderella story; this unknown comes outta nowhere to lead the pack, at Augusta. He’s on his final hole, he’s about 455 yards away — he’s gonna hit about a two-iron, I think. Oh, he got all of that one! The crowd is standing on its feet here, the normally reserved Augusta crowd — going wild — for this young Cinderella, he’s come outta nowhere, he’s got about 350 yards left, he’s gonna hit about a five-iron, don’t you think? He’s got a beautiful back swing — that’s — oh, he got all of that one! He’s gotta be pleased with that, the crowd is just on its feet here, uh — He’s the Cinderella boy, uh — tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot, he’s got about 195 yards left, he’s got about a — it looks like he’s got about an eight-iron. This crowd has gone deathly silent, the Cinderella story, outta nowhere, a former greenskeeper now — about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac — It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com