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Uni Watch

Roaring Twenties

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By John Ekdahl

A lot has been made of the under-30 group of golfers at this year’s PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. You’ll find them all over the top of the leaderboard, but they’re also leading a quiet revolution of the traditional golf slacks and standard polo shirt attire that we’ve all become accustomed to. From Dustin Johnson’s flat-brimmed baseball cap to Rory McIlroy’s bushy hair to Hunter Mahan’s thick surfer-style sunglasses to Anthony Kim’s signature belt buckles to Adam Scott’s pastels, the younger players are bringing much more individuality and personality as a whole than players of the previous generation.

There’s always been some standouts over the years, however. Gary Player always wore black. Boo Weekley seems to work in camo and hunting orange into most of his outfits. Ian Poulter is not only a professional golfer, but also a fashion designer. John Daly’s pants have gotten a lot of attention recently, but that’s been more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. And of course, there’s Payne Stewart.

My guess is that when the Ryder Cup rolls around later this year, the 20-somethings will have a major influence on the style of the uniforms.

 
  
 
Comments (52)

    I was wondering if anybody knew when the results for the Baseball Uni Contest would be in, and when the voting would start.

    Yeah and will there be more polls in the coming weeks? It would be great if there was a poll on teams that got their unis right the first time.

    as far as the design a baseball jersey contest–i hope to have all the entries flickr’ed, thes submission writeups collected and then put into article form sometime this week…once all the entries are shown, alain nana-sinkham, the gentleman who has graciously offered to make the jersey for the winner, will narrow those down to the top nine

    once the final nine are selected, those will be put forth in a poll, and the readers will select a winner

    again, hopefully i can get all the preliminary stuff done this week and we can see ALL the submissions (i haven’t even counted them all, but it’s close to 100) as soon as possible

    ~~~~

    as far as a “getting it right the first time” poll? that’s something i’ll discuss with our pollster; i did do a post on this subject with giancarlo a few months back, so perhaps some of the suggestions given then could be used in such a poll

    That pollster guy whoever it is sure does a bang up job. As for the design a jersey, my legal team is just waiting to see the results. :)

    Anyone wearing a flat brim baseball cap should be made to stand outside in a heavy wet snow fall. It shouldn’t even be dignified by calling it a ball cap. It should be – my big brother moved out & left me this hat, which I wear, because oddly enough, he did not also leave me a mirror.

    That golfer’s hat isn’t even flat brimmed.
    I hate massively bent bills, but I don’t care if someone does it. Shit, you could go with the whole v-bend if you want. Some people look better with different looks. Look at Gomer Pyle. The flipped up bill was a much better look on him.
    Me personally, I go slight bend/slight tilt. Yea, I said it. I tilt my cap just a little bit. Even my friends that hate tilted caps think it’s a cuter look for me.
    I just wish it wasn’t such a trendy thing.

    Wearing a cap backwards is the worst move of all. It’s just as silly as wearing shirts or pants backwards. I was watching a pro tennis tournament recently, and both players wanted to look “cool”, so they were wearing their caps the wrong way. The funniest part of this was the fact it was a sunny day, and both players were squinting big time, just trying to see the ball! Unbelievable.

    I’m the first to say BFBS is bad. My first email to Paul when discovering this site I mentioned how much I hated black. Before I even knew others feelings on this site. That being said, that pic of Griffey looks good. His long sleeve black undy and the worthless batting practice jersey look good. The hat, well it doesn’t bother me that much. Griffey is one of those that always looked good though. I bet there is a current player or two on the Reds that would barf that look up though.

    Dustin Johnson’s hat is flat brimmed?!?!

    I like my caps to be slightly bent, but not completely flat and I wear them up on the edge of my hair line…with a slight lean to the left. So the underside of the brim is visible. I second what ‘StLMarty’ is saying, to each his own. I dig the “Gomer Pyle” brim but it doesn’t look good on me.

    It’s a throwback. It’s accurate.
    Of course, I suppose you could send them a strong letter and backdate it to 1955.

    —Ricko

    Well, yes.
    And they aren’t all wearing Wilson, Rawlings or Riddell cleats, either. ;)

    —Ricko

    colts vs niners is pretty good lookin…except for the blue helmets, and slightly different “sleeve” stripes, pants stripe & socks — doesn’t look much different from their current roadie…but that blue helmet is NICE!

    Agreed. I wish fewer teams would wear white helmets, though the Colts have always been the one team whose white helmets I like. But that blue helmet is just dang sharp with the Colts’ crisp whites.

    Rory McIlroy looks like the kid in Caddyshack. So he’s got that going for him…which is nice.

    I think it would be even better if the ’55 Colts would have put two horseshoes on the front of the helmet as well. But yeah, it’s a good look. Always loved shiny dark blue.

    No. No it isn’t. It wasn’t a good look then (or they’d have kept it) and it isn’t a good look now.

    The only good part of that picture is the fact that Manning’s jersey actually has something resembling sleeves on it so the stripes aren’t truncated and stupid looking.

    Mariners and Indians on my tube. C’mon Seattle, try out Phil’s monochrome teal unis. At least go back to the teal/navy hat…either combination.

    Speaking of golfing styles, a few weeks ago someone was watching the LPGA and I happened to see a few minutes of it. One of the ladies was wearing sunglasses perched atop her hat, with another pair on the back of her hat.

    After googling around, I found out it’s Christina Kim:
    link

    At first I thought it was just one of her quirks, but it’s just another performance-enhancing techno-spin from her sunglasses manufacturer:
    link
    Whatever.

    Yeah. The Niners helmet stickers are too high.

    (and yes, Colts throwbacks, but that’s been covered)

    Such a classic look.
    I wonder if, had he not been killed, other PGA players might not have adopted their version of it.
    But now, of course, it would look like someone was capitalizing on his memory. Still too close to the event, I imagine. In another twenty years, maybe, some player will do it as a tribute to Stewart.

    —Ricko

    The NFL should get rid of these sleeveless jerseys. They look like SH$T. If Every team had to wear somewhat sensible sleeves on their jerseys, then no one would have an unfair advantage. And the game would look alot better – nwhich DOES count for something. I believe these sleeveless vest look immensely WORSE than untucked jerseys, or imperfect socks, or WHATEVER!

    The NFL has uni police to enforce a myriad of “violations”, all involving aesthetics – doesn’t the look of the player matter. And iff so, does ANY player look worse than that DL White Guy (sorry I can not recall his name) that recently played for the Bucs and Vikings? The guy looks like a fricken troll with the shoulder pads sticking out, etc.

    The game would look better, no one would be at any kind of disadvantage, and you could have rea;l sleeve stripes again, along with real UCLA stripes. And it certainly would not hurt marketing to sell wearable authentic jerseys, in a greater variety of striping patterns, and more similar to what players actually wear on the field.

    Remember, the truncated UCLA stripes we are plagued with today are directly devolved from the sleeveless linemens’ jerseys requiring the truncated stripes, and after 4-5 years of linemen and others having mismatched striping, the manufacterers simply truncated ALL if the players’ stripes to have them match.

    About 6-8 years ago the LSU radio team claimed that either the NCAA directed the teams to go with the matching truncated UCLA stripes because of the linemen’s jerseys requiring it for the sleeveless look.

    Correct. He’s probably a good guy, but his look is a trainwreck! And the sleeveless mess is 90% of it,
    the LA Ink “look” is the other 10% of the mess.

    And he’s not even wearing dark leotard pants that we are so often plagued with. If that were so, he would be our first undisputed 300% uni mess!

    As I look at the photos of those young golfers, a little part of me can’t stop thinking that they’ve lived somewhat privileged lives.

    I would beg to differ. Many of the guys on the PGA Tour scraped it around on muni tracks and worked at clubs to get the access they needed to get good enough to earn their way on tour. that’s how I did it and got good enough to play the mini tours (and a US Open) for a while.

    And remember, they had to EARN it.

    I’m guessing that Dustin Johnson’s belt buckle was also made by Adidas.
    Too bad they don’t still make Traxx. They had a fourth stripe. Those are what I always wore.
    As I got older I started liking a different set of four stripes.
    link

    Better even than the Colts throwbacks, check out the Calgary Stampeders:
    link
    link

    Yes, the original unis had white or gray facemasks, but I’ll overlook that, because this is SO much better than what the Stamps wear now. Calgary went from being the worst-looking team in the league to one of the best.

    JV, you are so right, these 1980s Stampeders look so much better than the mess they wear today. I have one of those 1980s Stamps jerseys, very heavy knit with sewn-in handwarmers. You see them on EBAY once in awhile. Very sensible colors. How hard could it be to use something like that today?

    What about Rickie Fowler? The guy represents his school every Sunday by donning Cowboy orange from head to toe.

    link

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