‘If I had abs like that, I’d show them off too’
Golf has a complicated relationship with its history. For decades, it was seen as a sport stuck in its old-fashioned traditions, a game synonymous with stuffiness. My younger sister won a junior club championship one year and as she left the carpark with the trophy in hand, proud dad walking alongside her, she was berated by an older female member for wearing shorts that were too short. There’s a time and place, surely.
Conversely, the golf club I grew up at had no issue with me turning up for nine holes in my Newcastle United football strip. Why give kids a reason to leave something that can provide them with so many benefits for life?
Golf has (sometimes reluctantly) dragged some of those stuffy traditions into the 21st century. I played in the 2022 AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield, a golf club that didn’t allow female members until 2019. Whether that was only because it was taken off the men’s Open rota after an initial failed vote on female membership is for the cynics to argue. Does it matter if the right outcome was reached? Possibly not. Many golf clubhouses have relaxed their policies to allow people to wear jeans and trainers; something that was unthinkable 10 years ago. Tyrrell Hatton’s hoodie sparked outrage at Wentworth in the BMW PGA Championship a few years ago, and now golf hoodies are everywhere.
The world has a slightly different view on what qualifies as ‘smart’ these days, and many golf clubs now reflect that shift – as well as recognising how to keep the money coming into their food and beverage departments.
But should professional golfers be held to a different standard? I think it’s ridiculous that PGA Tour players can’t wear shorts during tournaments, although I never really hear that from the players themselves. Is that part of golf’s traditions that needs to change? Would golf’s image be diminished if Rory won the Masters in shorts? Companies like Malbon and Adidas have really started to shift their collections away from what golfers are used to. It might not be for everyone, but I would assume they would argue that’s the whole point of fashion.
Recently we’ve seen that we might be reaching a tipping point. Adidas has collared crop tops as part of their golf collections; Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship in a (again, collared) top that exposed most of her shoulders and part of her back. She looked incredibly athletic, and it’s hard to argue that is bad for golf’s image – or for enticing more young girls to get into the sport. Playing major-winning golf takes incredible skill, determination and dedication, and you can see all of that in the way Nelly carries herself.
Highlighting the athleticism prevalent in today’s professional game is a good thing, because golf has long suffered from the ‘not a real sport’ attitude from people who don’t play it. The modern professional golfer is an athlete. But does that mean we should play professional golf in the same clothes we go to the gym in? Does there need to be a line drawn somewhere? I don’t think it’s appropriate to wear tight, short gym shorts and a sports bra in a professional golf tournament for example, however comfortable it might be and however ‘good’ the person wearing it might look. That would include on practice days, when spectators and sponsors may well be present, even if television isn’t.
But other people’s version of what is appropriate may well be different to mine. I often wear collarless tops in tournaments, but I think they look smart. You may disagree. I’ll happily turn up at a local driving range in a T-shirt and leggings, but I’m not going to do that at Muirfield or Kooyonga. The trouble is that you can’t trust people to use their common sense when considering which golf club they are going to and how that might be different to previous weeks. It’s hard enough for 120 girls to remember to request a carpark pass, never mind whether they can wear gym gear to practice when they’ve been on the road for six weeks in a row.
Things get messy if there aren’t clear regulations in place. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know exactly what the LET’s current regulations are regarding dress code until I looked them up prior to writing this column. Clearly others don’t either, because it’s being broken pretty regularly at the moment and as far as I’m aware no-one has been fined as a consequence. Much of the policy is vague, discussing what is “appropriate to the game of golf”. But it does explicitly say (at the time of writing) “tank tops or tops… that show midriffs” are “strictly prohibited”. The fact that I’ve also heard that the stance going forward is going to be to allow anything that is within a ‘golf collection’ doesn’t really feel like it clarifies much.
Not all traditions are bad. Golf has a lot of history to be celebrated, and part of its image is wrapped up in how professionals present themselves to the world. I think looking smart is something worth holding on to. Regardless of what you or I think qualifies as smart or appropriate in professional golf tournaments, there are always going to be people that push the boundaries. I saw Michelle Wie West say recently that she was fined numerous times in her career for the things she wore, but that Nike always paid them. I’m assuming she would say it’s worth it. And again, I think that’s OK too. Every sport needs rule-breakers to help push it along; to help shift perceptions and open doors. But if there aren’t any rules in the first place, it’s hard to know what’s worth breaking and what isn’t.
Photographs by Getty Images/matt roberts, sarah stier