Emerson Dameron

"I don't get how Homer works," says Janet Davies, ABC7 news personality and host of the Chicago lifestyle magazine show "190 North," as she breezes into the Green Eye Lounge, an inauspicious Homer Street watering hole under the Western Blue Line stop. At a table near the door, she joins a fresh-faced cameraman, a man with a frown and a blue ABC7 cap, and a woman with freezing blue eyes. She's carrying a golfing iron and a bright orange tennis ball. She's slightly behind schedule.

Jane Davis, an organizer for the Chicago Urban Devils Golf Enthusiast League (or "CUDGEL"), leaves the bar and approaches her. Jane sports a skirt, black boots, a puffy red jacket and, like the people adjacent to her at the bar, a conspicuous amount of argyle. "She brought her own club," she says. "My kind of woman."

Like standard golf, urban golf is a game that involves using sticks to knock balls toward a common goal. Each stroke counts for one point, and the golfer with the lowest score wins. But in urban golf, the course is usually a series of side streets and alleys (CUDGEL members scout out the courses ahead of time and avoid main drags), and the "holes" are, in Jane's words, "wherever we say they are." Most of the players use actual golf clubs, although the official rules advise that there's some leeway in what constitutes a club. CUDGEL discourages wanton vandalism; to that end, actual golf balls are not in play. Today, everyone is, like Davies, using a tennis ball, though everyone else's is bright green, not orange.

Some urban golfers insist on the game's sociopolitical significance, seeing in it a response to the prohibitive logistics and damaging environmental impact of regular golf, or maybe a protest of surveillance and conformity. If Jane and her pals have such a point to make, they don't push it. "More than anything else, CUDGEL is about bringing people together, about producing something of pure glee and unadulterated joy," she says. "We aren't going to change the world on a large scale, nor are we out to. Rather, the purpose of urban golf, and the purpose of all urban games, is to foster camaraderie, to encourage people to take life less seriously, and to simply let people cut loose and enjoy themselves. We might not be activists, but at least we're active."

"Everyone involved in CUDGEL was enthused about an idea that would allow us to bring together a group of people who wanted to have some fun, meet other like-minded individuals, and just act a little bit silly," says Jane. "We got the idea from a group of urban gamers in San Francisco, who also came up with the Urban Iditarod," a shopping-cart race that spawned Chicago's Chiditarod. "After that, it was just a matter of organizing an event that would attract as many people as possible, and be as much fun as possible." CUDGEL shot its first round on May 27, which also happened to be Jane's twenty-fifth birthday. Games rarely last more than a few holes, and always begin at bars.

Members have propagated the virus with a Web site (cudgel.org), a MySpace account and a series of photocopied fliers, distributed at Critical Mass rides and other such happenings. Jane also credits "word of mouth," whatever that means these days. Whatever they're doing, it's working. In a few months, CUDGEL has received a flurry of local media coverage, including a write-up in the Tribune. And, somehow, it attracted the attention of "190 North," which showed up to shoot a round of urban golf for its "wacky show," slated to air October 29.

"Really," says Jane, "urban golf tends to make its own publicity, and we just sort of follow along as it builds up steam... The folks who come out for urban golf, and who engage in other forms of urban gaming, are people who not only want to meet new people and build a sense of camaraderie with a new group, but also those who want to recapture the sense of wonderment and newness that often gets lost in the process of becoming an adult. Urban golf tends to attract people who are socially oriented, interested in new things, and also desirous of maintaining a certain joie de vivre that frequently gets left behind when people make the transition from childhood to adulthood. The media is always on the lookout for what's young, what's hip and what makes people feel younger than they are, and I think few things accomplish that as well as thwacking tennis balls around a city with golf clubs."

"Large-scale events run about thirty people," she explains to Janet Davies during the pre-interview rap session. This weekend, a number of diehards are out of town. Jane is clearly the ranking officer, and thus serves as spokesperson and judge. "Bribery is encouraged," she says, and many of the scoring decisions are arbitrary. "Like despots, we are."

By trade, Jane works as a library assistant, a revelation that prompts cackling laughter and cries of "oh my god" from the TV host. Specifically, she works at the University of Chicago. "Oh my god... you're an egghead librarian!"

Egghead librarian or not, Jane has a bit of the theater kid about her, and it's not just her polished diction, her well-practiced wit or her habit of referring to people as "cupcake." A lot of people dream of being on TV but clam up when an actual camera rolls. Jane seems to enjoy the attention in practice as much as most people do in theory.

"You don't organize something as visible as urban golf without enjoying the spotlight at least a little," she says. "However, I don't enjoy attention nearly as much as I enjoy seeing large groups of people having a great time because of something I put together, regardless of whether or not I receive credit for it. That having been said, I don't necessarily shy away from the limelight."

More people in comically stereotypical golf duds arrive at the Green Eye. "Now I'm jealous of the costumes!" Davies exclaims. A few of these people meet Jane for the first time. One fiddles with a cell phone.

Although no one from "190 North" appears to be drinking, the golfers are putting away pints and shots. One asks the Green Eye's bartender if the other guy is around, the bartender who served them a few nights ago. The other bartender claimed to have a golf club stashed behind the bar, and "he said he'd go golfing with us." The current bartender isn't sure whom they're talking about.

"Was he drunk?" asks the bartender.

"It was early," replies one golfer.

"He might've been drunk."

The "190 North" team takes Jane outside and shoots her interview out of eyeshot. They're gone for about fifteen minutes, during which time the frowning man with the blue cap walks into the bar, immediately walks back out, and stands alone on the sidewalk. When the rest of them return, they're in the middle of a conversation about Jane's personal life. "They just emailed me and said it was an open position," Jane tells Davies, "and they were interested in having me apply."

More golfers arrive, almost exclusively offbeat-looking people in their twenties. Everyone wears at least one argyle-patterned article of clothing. "More!" cries Janet Davies. "With sweaters and stuff! Perfect!"

The folks from "190 North" aren't the only media in the Green Eye this early afternoon. Obviously, there's your reporter, representing Newcity. ("I'm pretty sure it's because it's a slow news period," Jane says to one of her cohorts.) There's also a two-person film crew unconnected to ABC7 and seemingly ignorant of CUDGEL. They're interviewing the bar staff.

These fellows are shooting a documentary about a local kickball league, one off-duty Green Eye employee explains. Teams are sponsored by bars. The most recent season just wrapped. It was taken by the Invaders, a team representing Phyllis' Musical Inn, although the Green Eye employee doesn't think any PMI staff are on the team. ("I don't think they like daylight," he says.) The filmmakers are conducting decompression interviews with players, and plan to shoot the forthcoming season in its entirety.

"It's kind of funny," the Green Eye employee says of Janet Davies. "She does a show on Chicago, and she doesn't know how to get here." The bartender wonders aloud if urban golf is as much fun as kickball. "That," he says, "would be good TV."

As CUDGEL waits for stragglers, the "190 North" team sits by itself. The cameraman mentions "the last time I was in a bar." His co-workers talk about "the last time you were in a bar." Davies describes a graveyard she saw once. "Forty percent of the headstones said `Gone to Summerland'... Summerland is heaven for witches and warlocks."

Two drinkers at the corner of the bar discuss the local TV show "Check, Please!" The documentary crew chats with them on its way out.

The "190 North" cameraman shoots an exterior shot of the Green Eye. He shoots from the corner. He shoots the golfers as they toast their pints. Davies drops her orange tennis ball and catches it on the first bounce. While she talks about "my friends from Long Island," the cameraman hooks up her lavaliere mic.

It's time to go. "Let's get this over with," says Jane.

"Break some shit," says the bartender.

"That's our motto," says one golfer.

"Not our official motto," says Jane.

It's a cold, clear day. As the party crosses Homer and then Western, a few CUDGEL members still don't know each other, which bespeaks the organizational power of the Internet. As the camera looks on, two of them get acquainted. One says she discovered CUDGEL through something called Pinball Study Hall.

"We need to talk, at the end, about this... this pinball stuff," another golfer says.

The golfers gather at the mouth of an alley behind a McDonald's parking lot and prepare to tee off. The first "hole" is a fenced-in area for dumpsters about a block away. "Beware," announces one player. "If you try to go under the van, there is a ledge that will stop you." Jane passes around a black marker. "Name your balls," she says. "Terrible jokes are encouraged."

Janet Davies shoots. It ricochets off a garage and rolls right back to the tee. Like a few other players, she employs the phrase "practice shot." She shoots again. The frowning man and the blue-eyed woman hover in the background and don't appear to be doing much of anything.

Most of the golfers seem like low-key sorts, but the expressive ones shift the balance. A few, particularly Jane, engage in witty, sarcastic patter throughout the game, commenting on shots and revising the rules. "Strategy?" Jane exclaims. "Are you using strategy? `Cause that's technically cheating." The more vocal players crack frequent jokes about vandalism and law enforcement.

They're good kids, though. While an errant shot might set off someone's motion-sensitive lights, the golfers cooperate with residents as much as they can. When a car comes through, someone yells "Game off!" and its path is cleared. A few workers on a smoke break ask friendly questions and watch the game. Although CUDGEL does not pose any more of a nuisance than a group of typical high schoolers, it can be a bit rowdy.

"Shhh..." says one player, "I'm trying to golf here." Instead of driving, he putts, and executes the best shot of the day. Other golfers use their clubs like pool cues, with less success.

The louder golfers aren't the best. One player drives two tennis balls so far out of bounds, she has to play on with new ones. Bad shots inspire boisterous self-deprecating humor.

At one point, someone's shot lands near a pile of dog excrement, prompting a discussion of CUDGEL's "protocol on turds." (Technically, this qualifies as a "hazard," it is decided, and will not take the ball out of play.) As the golfer lines up a shot, Davies offers "a little advice... hit the ball, not the doo-doo."

Jane responds, "That pretty much sums up urban golf, actually."

(2006-10-17)

Also by Emerson Dameron

Just Lovely
On this Friday night at Ai Gallery, collaborative "mail art" looks as potent as ever
(2006-10-10)

The Car Club
It's Sunday morning on Labor Day weekend, and despite some spillover from a street fair on Division, Humboldt Park is not crowded and seems even more huge than usual
(2006-09-12)

Cooking Class
"I guess it's my job to teach you how to cook meth," cracks John Martiyy of the National Jewish Medical Center. He's surrounded by matchbooks, coffee strainers, packets of Sudafed and other domestic commonalities used in do-it-yourself methamphetamine production
(2006-06-06)

Big Wheels
Earlier this year, Fat Tire, an amber ale concocted by the New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado, got a ceremonious rollout in Chicago
(2006-05-16)

Circle Jerk
(2006-05-09)

Racing in the Streets
(2006-03-14)

Barflies United
(2006-01-24)

King for a Minute
(2006-01-10)

Pour Showing
(2005-11-15)

Arts Attack
(2005-05-17)

The Last Howl
(2005-05-03)

Getting Personal
(2005-04-19)

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