lucky golf outfit

I never golf without wearing my lucky viking hat, single-lens sunglasses, corduroy blazer (with elbow patches), purple and yellow wrestling singlet, golf glove, swim trunks, and of course my fins (aka flippers). Although I only wear the fins when I'm teeing off at the beginning of each hole and then switch back into my normal golf shoes until the next tee. Because really, how stupid would I look trying to walk around the golf course in fins (found on flickr).

EVANgolf

Golf fashion is moving in the right direction at Evangolf in Los Angeles.  Whether or not its the right direction for all of us (I'm picturing you, mister middle-aged bald-and-chubby) is perhaps questionable.  But the point is, it's thoughtful, progressive, functional, and a meaningful step away from what has blighted the sport for so long.

Bennington golf bags

Fundamental innovations to golf bag design are long overdue, as the ubiquitous industry standard has our clubs clicking and clacking, and has us fighting to get them in and out of the bag.  There have been several marginal attempts at improving this situation, none of which seem to have penetrated far into the mainstream market.  The Bagboy Revolver has probably been the best effort to date.

Bennington Golf offers several innovative improvements on the standard golf bag, including a unique club head organizer, interesting travel bags, and quick draw head covers.  Not earth shattering stuff, but at least they're trying...

japanese preteen golf tv shows

I ran into these Japanese and Korean television shows while surfing the web.  They are like those saturday morning preteen dramas (Hannah Montana, or Saved By The Bell).  I like the special effects they use to dramatize the golf shots.  And of course, the harajuku-esque costume design takes center stage.  Check out this episode of "Hana Pro Golfer", and these trailers for "Birdie Buddy".  If I were up early on a Saturday morning, hung over, and there was no tournament playing on the Golf Channel, I would problably watch these... for about three minutes.  But these shows say a lot about where golf fits into the culture there, compared to here in the U.S.

winning at golf

is always cool.

Winner

barefoot golf

Documenting the slew of "street / hybrid" golf shoes that are coming out now would be a full time job that I don't have time for.  But seeing these hybrids from Vivobarefoot, I was reminded of a late evening this past summer, standing on a putting green talking with friends, drinking Bridgeport IPA after a Cake concert at McMenamins Edgefield.  I was barefoot, thinking for the first time how awesome it would be to feel the ground in such detail like that while playing golf.  We joked that we would start manufacturing ultra-thin-soled golf shoes with individual little toes, like those barefoot running shoes.  It looks like Vivo has done almost that.  They are pretty close to True Linkswear shoes that have been out for a while now, but the "barefoot" moniker and claimed 6.7 oz. weight lead me to believe they are thinner and lighter.

Street Golf Europe

The culture surrounding urban golf is everything regular golf's culture should be.  Watch this video of the 2011 French Street golf City Pro Tour Championship.  This is the video from last year.

There is a super cool French online magazine featuring street golf, played in all kinds of locations including a ski resort.

They have special "semi rigid" golf balls.  They have real sponsors, like Grolsch, Lacoste, and Vuarnet (of course).  Nike sponsors a streetgolf event in Amsterdam.  Just look at the production value in this video.

We are beginning to see what we hope is the future of golf in the form of street/urban golf around the world.  My fellow Americans,  what are we waiting for?

Urban Outfitters

I'm not much of a fashion guy outside of golf.  I've been driven to blog about the subject out of shear dissatisfaction with mainstream golfing apparel.  But I think I have terrific news.  It appears to me that young men's fashion may be trending towards some looks that work great on the course.  That means we may have lots of great golfy stuff to choose from, readily available at all the normal retail shops.

Urban Outfitters has long been a great source of affordable, fashionable clothing.  This season they're coming strong with the cardigans.  The "blanket pattern" one is made from a wool blend - perfect for autumn/winter drizzle.

blanket pattern cardigan in wool blend

varsity stripes

giant houndstooth pattern

cardigans

Nothing says Fall golf like the timeless, classic coziness of a cardigan.  Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Fred Rogers, they all rocked the look thoroughly and often.  Sure, you can wear your high-tech insulated moisture-wicking breathable long-sleeve lycra undergarment beneath your golf shirt to stay warm in the cooler Fall temps, but you sort of look like a tool if you're not shooting a 78.   Plus, when the day heats up, you have to strip down to your farmer tan to get the undergarment off.  Your layers are all backwards.

So get real, figure it out, wear a cardigan.  And guess what, some are available in an amazing fabric that is highly insulating, water-resistant, breathable, and moisture-wicking!  This incredible material was invented by sheep a few million years ago.

Every major golf clothing company offers at least a couple cardigans.  Per typical, most offerings are about as exciting as the rest of their line.  This may or may not suit you, depending on your age and/or personal style.  Aside from scouring consignment/secondhand/vintage shops, you may have a difficult time finding what you're looking for.

I stumbled across the dinodirect website, which is a worldwide online store that offers tons of cardigans, most with somewhat livelier styling, and reasonably priced.  I can't yet vouch for the workmanship or quality of material.  Most shown are cotton.

keeping it real golfy, with scotch plaid elbow patches.

striped cardigan

classic cardigan w/ subtle stripes and metal buttons

picnic plaid.  skip the bow tie (unless you are a nut and/or shoot below par)

stripes in graduated shades

sport stripes

World Urban Golf Day - Portland

Portland, Oregon joined millions around the world at noon on Saturday, teeing off to celebrate "World Urban Golf Day".   This was my first time.  It won't be my last.  Portland urban golf turned out to be everything I'd hoped.  I anticipated the absurdity of striking a tennis ball off asphalt with a 5-iron.   I anticipated the bizarre hazards to be encountered on a course plotted through industrial back streets.  What I did not anticipate was the pub-crawl aspect of the event or how much of a kick in the pants this group is.  Thanks to the brilliant course designing skills of local adult recreation guru Scott Mazariegos, the links were strung between bars and quicki-marts.

Each golfer teed off the first hole one by one, but we eventually coalesced into a single mob, a thirtysome, roving the empty streets, clubs a-swinging, balls a-flying.  I ended up in the trees a few times.  I lost balls behind chain-link and barbed wire.  I duffed, shanked, and found myself with unplayable lies.  In other words, it was exactly like regular golf.  Word of advice: leave your 95 mph clubhead speed at home.  Tennis balls are different than golf balls.  Trap them perfectly with a descending blow just before the bottom of the swing arc, and they turn into a fist full of bubble gum at impact, instantaneously stuck to the asphalt like a gob of hot tar.  They go nowhere.  No, tennis balls must be swept cleanly off the pavement.  I carded a couple of 12's before figuring that out.

Urban golf feels like... freedom.  It feels the way you felt in junior high, before you had a car or an ID, roving the streets with your friends, making up games to entertain yourself, drinking beers out of paper bags.   For those who might play real golf, urban golf feels like real golf felt before the game tricked you into trying so hard.  Real golf feels like its playing you, more often than not.  But with urban golf, you are truly playing.

You can see a little about the game in this video, and Portland Urban Golf is on Facebook.

custom rolling golf bag w/ mini bar

old school bag - nice find

roman numeral 5 marked each hole

fresh attire

correct attire

teeing off a flatbed

fresh traditional attire - with Guiness

gold mini and boots!

pink argyle

jockey cap and parasol

nice photo composition & color palette

DIY golf shoes

The Adidas Samba, Nike Dunk NG, Ashworth Cardiff, True Linkswear, Ecco Street Premier, Kikkor Eppik,  Footjoy Street, and Puma Club 917 are all examples of the recent explosion of "comfortable" golf shoes.  These new offerings range from the carefully designed (Ecco, Kikkor, True), to the afterthoughts (Nike, Adidas) who are literally gluing soft spikes onto shoes they already make, just to participate in this emerging market.

Tretorn Strala Sommars

Well there's no reason you can't do the same thing.  Let economy be your guide, and convert shoes you already own into golf shoes.  Or let comfort be your guide, and convert a nice pair of Clarks or Hush Puppies into golf shoes.  Perhaps your personal style sense will take over, and you will convert a pair of Doc Martins, Converse Allstars, Timberlands, Campers, or New Balances.

Converted Orvis Duck shoes, Sorel Sentry's, or Tretorn Strala Sommars would make excellent foul weather golf shoes.

Golfcepts, LLC (http://www.golfcepts.com/prod_conversionkit.php) offers a kit that includes spikes, epoxy, and templates needed for such a conversion.  I'd be interested to see how well the spike installations hold up over time.

golf bags

I hate golf bags.  They're so stupid, with all your clubheads clicking and clacking as you walk.  At least when you carry your bag, the clubheads all hang the same way.  Strap your bag onto a cart and it's chaos, digging around looking for the club you want.  Half the time you swear you've lost the club you're looking for.  And how great is it when you try to stick your club back into the bag, only to have its grip wedge up against another grip and refuse to find the bottom of the bag?  Especially when you've hit a poor shot and your patience is worn thin...

It seems to me there have been exactly two significant developments in golf bag design in the last 400 years.  The stand mechanism that makes the legs whip out when you set it down, and the "backpack" style shoulder straps.

Here are two concepts that are heading for the market soon:

This is sort of an integrated bag-and-pullcart.  There aren't many other details to date.  Very stylish, but no info about how the clubs are stored, how much it weighs, other features, etc.

This one by Kaala Golf (www.kaalagolf.com) is a similar wheeled cart hybrid, but also features a nifty rotating cartridge system to store and dispense each individual club.  The clubs are stored "upside down", with the head lying in a "lazy susan" at the bottom of the bag, and the shaft clipped in, like a pool cue, onto the rotating center barrel.  One interesting note with these designs is that they're air travel-ready, being hard cases.

I don't know if these designs fit my game.  I don't see how they can do double duty as a stand bag and cart bag.  I'm not sure how their cost will fare in the market against the hordes of cheap mass-produced standbags, which obviously sell at a very high margin.  Time will tell.  But I certainly appreciate the fact somebody is trying to make improvements long overdue.

JT: golf fashion leader

When discussing golf fashion, many people tend to think of Ricky Fowler, who gets so much attention with his perfectly matched outfits.  While I appreciate how this human lollipop look does fly in the face of traditional golf style, I would beg to differ with those who view Ricky as a fashion leader, because color coordination and a flat-bill hat do not reflect a tremendous command of the art form.

The leaders in golf fashion's recent past have been Ian Poulter and Jesper Parnevik.  Ian's family was in the clothing business, inspiring him to bring new designs, particularly innovative trousers, to the fairways.  Jesper's family was in entertainment.  He brought tasteful but eclectic styles to golf, including the reintroduction of the tie-and-sweater-vest.  Ryan Moore recently tweaked Jesper's style with a grungier northwest sensibility.

Then there's Ryo Ishikawa.  With his ever-present upper arm sleeve, perfectly tailored western shirts, contrast stitching, and meticulous detailing/badging, this guy is on a whole other level.  Ryo consistently shows up looking like something you've never seen before, and looking really sharp.   Do you see how the pearl snap pockets on the shirt match the trouser pocket?  Do you see the faux epaulets talking to the military style cap?  This is a thoughtful, deliberate study in detail and fashion.

But Justin Timberlake is the clear leader in golf fashion.  Granted, he's not on The Tour, but he's a highly visible celebrity golfer who sponsors the Shriner's Open tournament, so I'm letting it slide.  Justin doesn't simply wear variations of one look.  He's got a hundred looks.  Often, it's a hip-hop inspired twist on the Parnevik standard, usually with a black trilby/fedora/derby, like this:

How does a guy throw an orange belt into that mix without it completely taking over?  It has everything to do with the stripe pattern on the shirt.   That's called understanding the basic principles of design.  Impressive, but not a big deal compared to this:

Yeah, lets get a camouflage ballcap, green hunting jacket, and fishing shades.  We'll even grow a beard to complete the redneck element of this look.  But now lets get some sporty red and pink stripes with white 70's piping on that jacket, and a snazzy designer urban belt for cultural contrast to balance it all out.  Cheeky chic.  Lovely.

JT, you are the golf fashion leader.

paragolfer

 

Paragolfer is a three wheeled buggy which has a rising seat to take the occupant from a sitting to standing position. The seat has chin and waste belts to keep the golfer balanced and in the seat.  The buggy is fully all terrain, meaning it can go in and out of sand traps, high grass, wherever the ball may end up.  And its design is gentle on the greens as well, making the Paragolfer easy for courses to embrace.

Cost is steep at this point, about $20,000 US, but for the freedom it offers, it’s money well spent for the disabled sportsman.

original link: www.coolest-gadgets.com/.../

Longhurst

"The most exquisitely satisfying act in the world of golf is that of throwing a club.  The full backswing, the delayed wrist action, the flowing follow-through... are without parallel in sport."

-Henry Longhurst

linksoul

is an art shop in Oceanside, CA that draws much of its inspiration from the game. (www.linksoul.com)

DIY

This guy picked up an older bag from Goodwill and made a stencil to spray-paint some attitude on it.  There is precious little Do-It-Yourself within the world of golf.