BETHESDA, Md. — In the weeks before the United States Open, Davis Love III received a package from his clothing sponsor, Ralph Lauren, anddisocunt ralph lauren was startled by one particular item inside: linen pants the hue of Pepto-Bismol. He was told to pair them with a blue-and-white-striped shirt on the first day of play. Love modeled the trousers for his wife and said, “You’ve got to bepolo ralph lauren kidding me.”
But it was no joke: Ralph Lauren meant to send him those pants the color of Bubblicious. The company was so jazzed about the shade that itshirt ralph lauren sent Webb Simpson a pair too, but in cotton. So, in their blindingly pink outfits of powerful pulchritude, the two of them acted as beacons at Congressional Country Club on a gray, overcast Thursday.
Simpson, who wore a lime green shirt with those pink pants, said he never questions the outfits Ralph Lauren sends him — even if theyralph lauren pas chere seem ripped from a page of “The Official Preppy Handbook.” Love, perhaps hardened by the 20-plus years he has on Simpson, is somewhat less pliant.
“They tell me, ‘Look, we sell more pink pants whenever you wear the pink pants,’ and I get that,” Love said of his sponsor. “But I always ask them: ‘Well, who’s going to sell the khaki? I want to sell the khaki.’ ”
The on-course wardrobes ofralph lauren pas cher players like Love and Simpson are often scripted by clothing companies at major tournaments like the Open. Each day, those players are given specific outfits to wear, down to the belt and shoes. Sponsors are aware of how much news-media exposure the players — and their fashion choices, good or bad — will get, no matter how they perform.
One day at thechemises ralph lauren Masters this year, for example, Luke Donald wore a pink shirt, Kelly green pants and white visor. And people couldn’t stop talking about it. One British newspaper said Donald’s “pistachio, raspberry and white outfit made him look like a walking Neapolitan ice cream.”
Marty Hackel, theralph lauren homme fashion director at Golf Digest, said: “When Luke wore bright colors, everyone was just so upset about it. But golf is an outdoor sport, in the sun and nature. Why do we want to dress like we’re cleaning out the garage?”
Rickie Fowler, who went to Oklahoma State, describes his look as “not exactly the country-club tradition,” looking nothing like Thurstonacheter ralph lauren
Howell III when he wears head-to-toe orange on Sundays to honor his alma mater. One blogger called him “a traffic cone with hair.”
Bubba Watson also encountered some grief when he decided to wear Travis Mathew military-themed clothes at this Open. His Army green shirt had four stars embroidered over the right pocket and a “B. Watson” patch over the left pocket. His camouflage pants made him look equally stealthy and transparent on the course. For every shirt sold, $10 will go to military outreach, he said.
“Bubba! Are you kidding me with those pants,” the golfer Arron Oberholser wrote on Twitter. “Might be taking the golf boys/village people thing a bit far.”
The complaints over bright colors or offbeat clothing, Hackel said, are not about preserving a traditional take on the game as much as they are about imposing one’s taste in fashion on others. That’s nothing new.
When the American golfer Johnny Miller was one of the world’s top players in the 1970s, Hackel said, he took some criticism for wearing hey-look-at-me outfits like pants with mammoth black-and-white houndstooth checks.
“People have toralph lauren femmes dress to their personality,” Hackel said, “and if they are effervescent and enthusiastic, they wear brighter colors than people who are careful and methodical, and nothing is wrong with that.”
He said that someone like John Daly is a good example of one who dresses to his personality, pushing the limit in Loudmouth Golf pants that feature patterns like massive sunflowers and colorful and dizzying checked patterns.
“But his girlfriend wears matching outfits, and they end up looking like a marching band,” Hackel said. “There’s always someone who pushes the limit of fashion too far.”
Some golfers simply feel more comfortable in hipper clothes than, say, pleated khaki trousers and a white polo. Johan Edfors wore a dandelion-colored Puma shirt, white pants and a white engineer’s cap last Thursday and a mostly teal getup on Friday. Edfors describes himself as stubborn when it comes to fashion: if Puma sends him a belt and he doesn’t like the color, he will not wear it. http://www.ralphlaurenshopfr.com/
Mar 5 Juil - 2:54