Golf’s popularity has increased in recent times and in the course of the pandemic, with recent golfers and the continued proliferation of non-traditional ways of playing like TopGolf helping to shed the game’s bad fame.
Grammy Award-winning rapper Macklemore, best known for his hit “Thrift Shop”, recently fell in love with golf but found the garments sold to players didn’t appeal to him.
“I used to be dragged to the golf course on vacation and didn’t need to go – I definitely hit a couple of houses,” Macklemore told CNBC’s Dominic Chu on CNBC Small Business Playbook Virtual Summit on Wednesday. “Finally cleared the iron five from the green bunker and was delighted. How did it feel? I want it again.”
Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, said he went to a sporting goods store soon after but realized that “the collections when it comes to golf fashion were very modest, and that is generous.”
“Golf clothes have one white male archetype in mind,” he said. “Golf is far greater.”
Golf struggled to shake off this belief at the same time as Tiger Woods became certainly one of the best players within the history of the game.
However, there may be hope that the influx of recent players will help change this archetype. An estimated 3.2 million people played the course for the primary time in 2021, a rise of 33% from 2019 and well above the number of people that got here to play after Woods’ early successes in 1999 and 2000, in line with The National Golf Foundation. According to the NGF, more rounds were played last yr than ever before in history.
While a few of that momentum has slowed – rounds played in 2022 are down around 6% from last yr – the influx of recent, younger players has helped revitalize the sport, Macklemore said.
“There’s a complete generation of young individuals who got into golf within the last yr to a few years and so they don’t desire to seem like they’re selling real estate, and I feel that is great,” he said.
Having been a fan of Seventies and Eighties golf fashion before becoming a golfer, Macklemore’s desire to satisfy the demand for attire for golfers like himself led Macklemore to begin the Bogey Boys clothing brand.
Macklemore said the brand, which incorporates Cheetah-printed knitted vests, pinstriped sweaters and colourful polo shirts, was designed with each golfers and high-fashioners in mind, as are many mainstream golf apparel brands. not consider.
“I feel with a variety of other brands it is determined by whether individuals are golfing or you are not going to wear those clothes,” he said. “I feel something that is happened with the pandemic and golf’s exponential growth is that you simply see a shred of golf fashion within the streetwear space – you possibly can go to [fashion website] Hypebeast and see articles about golf, it’s something completely recent.”
Macklemore will not be the primary golf enthusiast to try to alter the face of the game. In 2011, Justin Timberlake became the creative director Golf Callaway, working on a “visual representation” of the club and clothing manufacturer. Bill Murray, known for his role in “Caddyshack”, founded William Murray Golf in 2016. NBA star Steph Curry began creating golf apparel with In armor in 2019, resulting in the launch of his golf line under his Curry Brand offshoot.
This increase in recent players in addition to recent products has been a boon for golf apparel, often led by firms similar to Adidas, NikeCallaway and Acushnetowned by Footjoy. More than $150 million value of golf apparel was sold in April, with 21 of the last 22 months seeing month-on-month increases in sales, in line with Golf Datatech, an industry-tracking golf product tracker.
But even when golf growth slows down, Macklemore said the give attention to fashion, unlike other golf-centric apparel, will still profit the Bogey Boys.
“Every sport grows and wanes, that is okay,” he said. “Clothes will proceed to be top-notch, the standard will likely be great, and other people will feel great and look great of their clothes.”
