Golf Clothing – Fashion or Efficiency?

Golf clothing needs to let the player move efficiently to play effectively, so will it ever be fashionable?

Golf clothing and fashion

So golf clothing and fashion have never been easy bed partners, but the game has had decades and decades to catch up with the rest of the world’s sports and gain a sense of style. So why was it when the 2006 Ryder Cup kicked off, there were more column inches in the papers about the kind of golf clothing the teams were wearing than how they played?

Tweed Blousons

Mind you, consider for a moment what the American team had chosen for their apparel – tweed blousons, patterned tank tops, ties and beige slacks. It merely hammered the last nail in the coffin in which lies all of the crimes involving golf clothing. But the British didn’t get away with their sense of golf clothing style either. They started digging their own graves when they turned up in brown suede jean jackets over high-zipping grey tops. Some fashion pundits think it is too late for golf clothing, that the sport faces an insurmountable lack of style.

Fashion Faux Pas

Perhaps the fashion faux pas are down to the fact that golf clothing has to look a certain way out of necessity. There has to be room for the upper body to swing easily, and the trousers need enough room for swivelling hips without flapping fabric. It’s a well known fact that many fashions are often uncomfortable, even painful. High heels, skin-tight trousers, corsets, flounced neck ties or boob tubes can’t exactly be adapted into efficient golf clothing – not if you take your game seriously.

Tank tops

But when it comes to the fashion stakes, although critics can understand the dictates golf clothing design must cohere too, can anyone really respect the American team turning up in tank tops? No wonder they lost the Ryder Cup. But to be fair, with the honour and money that is at stake when it comes to golf (Tiger Woods is fast becoming the world’s richest sportsman and the game’s first billion-dollar man) perhaps they have more important things on their mind than their golf clothing looking good – as long as it performs well.

Catherine Zeta Jones

Besides, not all golf clothing is a fashion disaster as evidenced by the major labels who have dedicated golf clothing ranges. The golfing style often leaks into mainstream fashion, including shoes, tops and handbags. And with celebrities like Catherine Zeta Jones and Jodie Kidd playing the game, it can’t be too long until golf clothing starts to influence mainstream fashion and vice-versa. Contact Golf Bidder for great golfing gear.