Wedged into a 15-foot-by-15-foot booth near the back of the PGA Fall Expo's expansive setup in the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall, well past the latest in clubs and practice greens and video equipment to analyze one's swing, Roger Dewey doesn't appear to belong.
That's because all around the jovial, heavy-set, part-time local/part-time Chicagoan -- who jokingly professes to be better skilled at driving a beer cart than a golf ball -- are flat-bellied salesmen and affiliated club pros, with their hair neatly styled, their slacks crisply pressed, their spiels perfectly polished.
At first glance, the rough-hewn Dewey looks like ... well, an unwrapped Baby Ruth candy bar floating in a swimming pool -- grossly out of place.
But that's just the point: Roger Dewey is what he sells and sells what he is.
He is the new face of Bushwood Country Club.
Celebrating -- and unabashedly seizing -- the 25th anniversary of the theater release of "Caddyshack," one of the greatest sports movies ever made, Dewey has launched an "initial phase" of Bushwood Country Club golfing apparel and like memorabilia that can be purchased online (caddyshack25.com) or soon, he hopes, as lighthearted fare inside traditional pro shops.
Want a garishly salmon-pink cap or orange T-shirt like that worn by Bushwood caddie-turned-player Danny Noonan? Dewey has them.
Want an official Bushwood Country Club golf ball? Dewey has them, by the sleeve or a limited number individually autographed by Michael O'Keefe, who played Noonan.
Want a Bushwood Country Club pin flag or an unframed "Caddyshack" poster signed by the likes of O'Keefe, Chevy Chase (millionaire playboy Ty Webb), Rodney Dangerfield (wise-cracking land developer Al Czervik) and Cindy Morgan (sexy debutante Lacey Underall)? Dewey has them, ranging from $30 to $559.
He even has copies of the original movie script ($19.95).
"This is fun stuff," Dewey, 46, says of his exhibit. "Everybody that I'm going to meet (Wednesday and today) is going to have a smile on their face. ... That's the way I like to be. I just want to have fun in life."
"I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen -- and be the ball."
-- Ty Webb
Dewey, a former industrial supply salesman who gave up the conventional hamster-in-the-wheel work world because "corporate America just wasn't for me," is being the ball.
He knows it's a gamble -- the competition for sales and placement is immense -- but said he believes the timeless love for the movie that also featured Ted Knight (slow-burning Judge Elihu Smails) and Bill Murray (crazed groundskeeper Carl Spackler) means there is a market for what he is selling out of his Prospect Heights, Ill.-based company.
"It's the movie of the common man. It's just Joe Golfer," Dewey says of "Caddyshack," which opened to a 1980 New York Times review that panned it as "immediately forgettable."
"It's the guys who can't afford to pay $250 a round for golf," Dewey continues. "It's the guy who goes to the public course. Bushwood is their public course."
Dewey cites twentysomethings, some not even born at the time of the movie's release, who not only know of the film but can recite verbatim some of its more memorable lines.
"I don't want to compare it to the 'Rocky Horror (Picture Show),' but it has its own cult following," he says.
"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? Oh, it looks good on you, though."
-- Al Czervik
Lest you think Dewey simply is trying to make a quick buck off the silver anniversary of "Caddyshack," he speaks of soon adding other items to his Bushwood Country Club line, if sales from his initial phase prove profitable. Can a club-launching golf bag, like the one used by Dangerfield's whip-cracking witty character, be too far off?
Dewey declines to say how much he spent licensing the Bushwood Country Club name. While he was not allowed to use "Caddyshack" on any items other than the autographed posters or pre-existing memorabilia, he was the first to register the Bushwood Country Club name and the logo of the club that was used in the film.
The club's red-green-and-white logo appears on all of the merchandise.
More than anything, Dewey says he is a "Caddyshack" fan. He watches the movie at least once a month -- sometimes once a week -- and has seen it hundreds of times since it debuted.
"I guess I'm a little like Ty Webb," he explains. "He has a flippant, I-don't-care attitude. Nothing matters to him. ... I say, 'You've only got one round (of golf) in life, so let's have fun.' "
Or in the words of songwriter Kenny Loggins, whose music closes out "Caddyshack": "I'm all right! Don't nobody worry about me!"
Joe Hawk's column is published Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 387-2912 or jhawk@reviewjournal.com.
