July 30th, 2009 by Rhys Jones

I was reading one of those ‘Golfing for Women’ magazines the other week and began wondering where the women live, who wear the golf attire modeled in women’s golf magazines? I’ve never seen women, not even the professionals, who would dress in such expensive and outrageous clothing.

It’s easy to spend lots of money fitting yourself out for golf. What with hats, sunglasses, gloves, shirts, shorts, socks, windsheeters and shoes, the costs add up very quickly, even if you do your shopping at the sales. Then add in the cost of clubs, balls, bag, cart and fees and you have to play very often to keep the “CPU” (cost per use) down to a reasonable level.

One full-page glossy advert showed a beautiful young ‘golfing lady’ in very tiny hot-pants (as if that’s allowed on golfing greens!) that cost nearly $300, a golf shirt at almost $600, a jacket by Ralph Lauren at almost $200 and two-toned Utuser shoes costing $400 plus.

That adds up to nearly $1,500! I know that I could never hope to get the CPU on that outfit down to anywhere near an acceptable level in my lifetime! Don’t misunderstand me - I love clothes and I really love shoes, but could never afford, or even want, golf shoes or pants that cost more than most people’s weekly wage.

Granted, you want comfortable golfing shoes that don’t look like a pair of clogs, but really, you can find cheaper and still fantastic golf shoes.

I have a couple of very trendy golf outfits, although none of them are brand names. If I totalled up the cost of all of them, it would not cover the price of a Tse golf shirt. Personally, I’d rather have several nice outfits than one outrageously priced one.

If I were to wear a $1,500 set of golfing apparel to play golf in, I would just be too worried about getting it dirty or perspiring in it to enjoy a proper round of golf.