Clothes for Winter Golf

Where I live, it rains for much of the winter. That means you have to expect that at least twice each round a perfectly straight drive will plug so deeply it's never found. And you have to dress for mud.

Walking a muddy golf course is when veldtschoen style golf shoes come into their own. A veldtschoen is a field shoe designed to be as waterproof as possible, with a bellows tongue and a welt sewn to create a water resistant seal. It works - I've played rounds where my rain pants soaked through and my feet remained dry. The shoe pictured at the left is from Edward Green.

Judging by the initial reaction at my club, my other mud suggestion is likely to be a little less generally accepted. I took the idea from golfers of the 1930's, including the famous guy to the left. Like the late Payne Stewart and a host of other men with lower handicaps than I'll ever carry, he's wearing plus fours, so-called because they fall four inches below the knee. That happens to be an inch or two above the mud splatters that you get when you hit a shot a little fat, and it means you only have to clean a pair of socks instead of your trousers after each round.

Also known as breeks or plus twos (which fall two inches below the knee), you can find them ready to wear at a number of UK sources, including Barbour which usually offers them in wool, corduroy and cotton drill.

Now if Titleist would just embed a locator in a golf ball...