Buttoning Up for Winter Golf

On the Northern California coast, the cardigan sweater comes into its own on the winter golf course. I love the light gray flannel trousers and green cavalier's hat on the man putting in the illustration.

Most of all, I appreciate that his cardigan buttons rather than zips. I think zippers are fine when covered by cloth. But, rational or not, my eye just doesn't like looking at them on clothes.

Of course, that's not a problem in this mythical place where caddies wear wrap coats and neckties.

Quotation: Dressing to Beat Par

"It is worthy of note that practically none of the leading golfers, amateurs or professionals, are ever untidily arrayed for battle. The golfer owes neatness of dress to his gallery. If he carries no gallery he owes it to his other club members. If there are no other club members around he owes it to himself. It will not help him in any physical way, but it will undoubtedly help a lot in terms of increased morale. And there are times when morale is badly needed following the entrance into a yawning bunker or the depressed feeling that comes after missing a two-foot putt.

And it is well enough that a badly dressed, or rather an untidily dressed golfer, even if he is pretty good, will always be taken for a duffer of purest ray serene by those who see him on the course. In this way, the apparel will often proclaim his score."

-Grantland Rice, Men's Wear, July 9, 1919

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...