the future of golf fashion
On the eve of Masters week, with the flowering azaleas symbolising new beginnings in golf, there is no time like the present to assess the direction of golf fashion.
I started this page back in 2017. Back then, cotton polos, wide-leg trousers (I won’t use the term ‘baggy’), and traditional-style golf shoes were on their way out. Performance fabrics and sporty-looking golf shoes such as the FootJoy ProSL and Adidas Tour360 were all the rage. Jordans were overlooked, irrelevant, and sitting on shelves. How times have changed, but why have they changed?
2020 saw the world come to a stop for a brief time. In the summer of that year, golf was the only sport you could play. Starved of social interaction, everyone became golfers, and the sport has been buzzing ever since.
Naturally, with more people come more ways of doing things. Golf fashion has seen a number of external factors challenge the norms and push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable golf course attire. The question I want to ask is, have they been pushed for good, or will we start to see a return to the way things were?
Let’s make the case for them being pushed for good. The influx of new golfers includes some of pop culture's most influential people. DJ Khalid and Travis Scott, to name but a few. If they continue to love the sport and continue to push the sport into this new space, then I can definitely see the sport continuing to change and golf fashion continuing to be more diverse with regards to the outfits you see on the course. Now, brands. There have been new golf fashion brands popping up every five minutes in the last four years, well, it seems like it anyway. They are all trying to capitalize on this new influx of people playing the sport. Some have failed to make a mark; others believe they are here to stay.
Cultivating a community, Manors, have certainly made their mark. Some of the best, most engaging, and aesthetically pleasing marketing in the golf space in recent times. From community events to media press trips to Royal Dornoch. Creating their own community of golfers invested in the brand is a top priority and if successfully executed, could secure their long-term future in the game, which in turn, will continue to see the golf fashion space change.
Those people that got into the game in recent times. If certain factors see those people disappear from the tee sheet, things could look very different. If the sport starts to shrink as it was doing in 2019, no waitlists, no joining fees, only the die-hard golfers will remain and if those golfers that remain prefer the 2019 style then I think we could start to see the return of the performance fabrics and well-fitting garments.
Now, we touched on Manors earlier. Attempting to take a slice of the pie is always easier if the pie is a large one. Rewind to Black Friday 2023; Manors are selling T-shirts at £5 and other pieces for close to 70% off the retail price. As an outsider, it is either genius to get as much product out into the marketplace as possible or they are struggling for sales and needing to liquidate stock. Following that up with a crowdfunding plea, a shrinking pie could be the end.
There is no way of knowing the direction that we are headed in. All we can do is continue to wear what we like, continue to book our tee times, and continue to play the sport we love.
