OPINION: Let The Pros Wear Shorts!
- Updated: February 21, 2019
You are never quite prepared for the images when they appear on your screen. We currently live in a world where seeing a PGA TOUR player’s bare legs is jarring. Just Google “Mickelson + calves” and see what turns up. It has rattled golf fans.
But those feelings from rarely seen images are a thing of the past.
can we talk about @PhilMickelson‘s calves? pic.twitter.com/DtzJ6qeFh7
— Sean Zak (@Sean_Zak) February 18, 2019
On Feb. 18, the PGA TOUR announced it would allow players to wear golf shorts during practice and pro-am rounds. The last two years they could wear shorts during practice rounds at the PGA Championship and caddies were allowed to showcase the stems since 1999.
They still have to wear them during competition rounds. However, here is hoping that, too, will be a thing of the past. Ah, yes, a “pros should wear shorts” take is pretty low on the importance spectrum, but it is now only a matter of time.
Players like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have come out in favor of wearing shorts during competition rounds. And in January images of Jack Nicklaus in Bermudas appeared online. As they say, once it goes to Jack, it never goes back.
Then
Great morning at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida with @JackNicklaus and @TigerWoods! pic.twitter.com/mdPN4yvS8e
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2019
My brain tried to compute what my eyes were seeing. I’ve never seen Nicklaus in shorts. For years I covered the Memorial Tournament and even in 90-degree weather with 100 percent humidity he was in a sport coat and slacks. Shorts? Never. Once the initial shock wore off the brain started working again. And it was reminded that while it may be shocking at first, it is simply ludicrous to force pros to wear pants.
Shorts can’t be professional?
Please. In the last 12 months, Rickie Fowler wore joggers, high tops and an untucked shirt. Phil Mickelson wore a long sleeve button down. Bubba Watson is still allowed to top his dome with that awful visor. Pro golfers have hardly been the trendsetters in the fashion world.
http://gty.im/901364968Golf wants to portray the idea that each week these pros are playing the same game with the same equipment on the same courses as you and me. This is true … to an extent. Most of us can’t hit a 300-yard drive off an elevated tee to a down-sloping fairway in Denver (the mile high city.)
Golf wants to perpetrate that idea so why not let the pros wear shorts during competition? Pros are still going to look professional in slim cut shorts because, well, they are damn good at golf.
RELATED: BIG Golf Equipment Strikes Again
We’ve all seen that one player who rolls up to
“Oh, we’re playing the tips,” he inevitably says as his brand-new $550 driver produces a banana slice traj on his first tee ball. Let’s not perpetuate those types of players, PGA TOUR.
Let them wear shorts!
About the author: Don Delco currently is a stay-at-home dad in Basel, Switzerland where he has lived since 2017. Golf isn’t very popular in the land of cows, chocolate and cheese. That hasn’t stopped him from obsessing about the game he loves despite his two kids causing his handicap creep back to double digits. He used to cover sports in Ohio for print and radio from the fairways of the PGA TOUR to field hockey and football. Tiger Woods, LeBron James and Bernie Kosar are the GOATs in their respective sports — go ahead, at him on Twitter @DonDelco.
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