Hands up if you have a fever today – Ryder Cup 2020 fever to be precise. After a long Covid delay, the tournament will finally be knocked off tomorrow in Wisconsin, where the USA will desperately try to reclaim the famous gold trophy from Europe. They may already be under the hat, at least in the tailor’s piles.
As with the last three Ryder Cups, Rory McIlroy and his European cohorts will be dressed in the clothes of the Italian cashmere god Loro Piana. The collection, co-designed with team captain Pádraig Harrington, includes a range of technologically insane gear (we only wear Storm System® rain cover, baby!) That can be worn on and off the pitch, and comes at a predictably exorbitant cost. Take the waterproof jacket, which is available for bargain $ 2,900, or the technical polo shirt – it looks a bit like Prada to the squint – yours for just $ 800. Hell, even the baseball cap is almost $ 300! It is often said that golf is a sport for rich men, but this is the kind of luxury one would not expect at the local club.
In reference to the host city and the nearby Green Bay Packers, the European team wore special tracksuits with green stripes during training on Wednesday. As if they hadn’t proven themselves popular enough with the locals already, they put on the cheese heads worn by the loyal fans of the NFL team. No comment on headgear.
“When we were doing the clothes with Loro Piana, they talked about maybe bringing in some Irish colors for me,” said Harrington. “I’m not really into that sort of thing, so I made up, ‘Why don’t we do something with Wisconsin?’ Obviously the Green Bay Packers go well with both the Irish and Green Bay Packers, and then the cheeseheads came along and we had a bit of fun with them. “
Like Team Europe, Team USA has remained loyal to its long-time supplier and will play in patriotic red-white-blue Ralph Lauren threads for the fourth time in a row. Their capsule includes polo golf and RLX golf apparel, all of which come with weatherproof mod-cons. It’s not surprisingly much cheaper than the Lorry P-Stuff (the Polo is $ 98), but honestly? It’s just a little too “dad” for me. That’s fine, though – we’re talking about a golf collection, FFS – and it’s often wise to play it safe in this arena, especially considering previous monstrosities like the infamous US 1999 shirt.
Team USA will rock the RLX Course designs on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday while they switch to Air Tech pique polo shirts with chest stripes on Wednesday and Sunday. Though it’s mostly completely harmless, think of Justin Thomas, who no doubt would have preferred to play in a different brand. He was dropped from a partnership deal after missing a putt at the Tournament of Champions in January. When a journalist asked his opinion about the uniforms, he was not happy.
When it comes to horrific fashion in sports, the Ryder Cup is usually at the forefront. But this year? Both are good. If we had to pick a favorite, we’d be racing with the Loro Piana team, but really, we’d just be happy with a booty from NOCTA.