Charlie LeDuff is sort of Detroit's unofficial mascot, and he's good at representing the gritty—and sometimes fun—city as it struggles back to life.The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and Detroit native has been calling national attention to his city ever since he quit The New York Times to move back there in 2007 and write for The Detroit News. In 2010 he took a job as a reporter with the local Fox affiliate and that's where he undertook his latest reporting stunt: A par 3,168 golf game through the nearly empty city. It's an 18-mile, one-hole course that took LeDuff on a meandering southeasterly course through the city. "How many cities are so empty you can take a full-on swing?" LeDuff asks. (Embedding doesn't seem to be working, but you can click over to My Fox Detroit and watch the piece there.)

Meanwhile, the stunt calls to mind another city golf game, this one a fictional jaunt through Manhattan in the video for indie rocker Dinosaur Jr.'s "Feel the Pain," directed by Spike Jonze in 1994. Despite the 100-degree heat, LeDuff's game actually looks more fun -- no fights with businessmen in the park for him.

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Adam Martin