(February 19, 2019)
BY AAGD STAFF
Chiming in with the times, the PGA Tour has relaxed its standers for player attire guidelines and will now permit golfers to wear shorts during practice and pro-am rounds. This brings a whole new meaning to “Leg day”. The new dress code permits shorts that must be “knee length”, taylored and neat in appearance,” says the ruling. If players wish to wear compression leggings underneath their shorts, the leggings are required to be “solid in color.”
PGA Tour player advisory council (PAC) co-chairman James Hahn announced the relaxed attire rules to fellow players on social media on Monday. The new dress code ruling starts this week at the WGC-Mexico Championship and Puerto Rico Open.
What is best about this new attire code is that the change comes just before the PGA Tour’s Florida swing, which starts with The Honda Classic from Feb. 28-March 3 at PGA National Club, Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens.
In the past, several PGA Tour players had argued for such an attire change, and they applauded the new guidelines on social media.
“I would love it,” Tiger Woods said in a Facebook Live with Bridgestone Golf in May 2018, Tiger Woods said he supported players wearing shorts during Tour events. “We play in some of the hottest climates on the planet. We usually travel with the sun, and a lot of our events are played in the summer, and then on top of that when we have the winter months here a lot of the guys go down to South Africa and Australia where it’s summer down there.
“Also, a lot of the tournaments are based right around the equator so we play in some of the hottest places on the planet. It would be nice to wear shorts. Even with my little chicken legs, I still would like to wear shorts.”
Now that the PGA Tour has relaxed it wardrobe playing standards, perhaps some country clubs and golf courses will consider doing the same, because we all remember how not even Michael Jordan, with his six NBA championship rings, reported half-billion-dollar fortune and worldwide recognition, could escape the policy at the golf course that demands a tucked in collared shirt and Bermuda shorts.
