LeDuff(er) Hacks His Way Across Detroit

This guy really puts the par in parkour.

While many spent the July 4th holiday golfing, Charlie LeDuff, reporter at WJBK Detroit, spent it both working and golfing. In one of the more inventive pieces you’ll see today, LeDuff sets up a preposterous premise–golfing his way across the Detroit market–to explore the city’s famed social ills, and chat with those who are suffering from them.

LeDuff, a natural ham who we profiled last year, manages to be both funny and evocative on his 18-mile excursion. Detroit’s barren stretches are well known, and LeDuff spotlights them by driving a golf ball clear through open stretches of city.  “How many cities are so empty that you can take a full-on swing?” he asks.

LeDuff shot a 2,525 in the first ever “I Heart the D Invitational”–and reported on poverty and hopelessness among residents in a novel way.