Niall, Bogey, et. al.,
Because the question is
not whether or not private clubs/entities/individuals HAVE the right to enforce a dress code on their private property. It never has been. Yet the only response is "well, they have the right to do that."
Great.
The question is actually "What does the manner in which, and which specific, rights they exercise say about the private club/entity/individual and how does that affect the overall health and future of golf as a whole?"
And nobody seems to want to glance in the mirror and see what is lurking behind them to actually answer the question.
A few years back I took a curious friend of mine from the range to the course for the first time. They, quite reasonably might I add, showed up to play in what any person would choose for spending a few hours out-of-doors walking and occasionally performing a quick, precise, athletic movement. I took care to warn them that they may be required to change into attire more akin to what I was wearing but I also was NOT going to be the guy to force them. That's on the club.
Sure enough they ended up purchasing a nice logo shirt in the shop. Ironically, the gym shorts passed muster here.
45 minutes later on the third green as I am repairing ball marks and informing my friend the courtesy is to fix any damage you create and any other damage you see. This was met with a rather perplexed look...
"So, I'm expected to dress a certain way before even participating, and while participating I'm expected to clean up after the neglect of others, why aren't they denied service?" I returned their gaze with the dumbstruck look of someone that had been missing the obvious for so long. Any
rational human being would question this.
Look at how quickly pretty much every participant on this thread has jumped in line to defend a private entity's RIGHT (which has never been in question) to enforce a dress code and here I am one of the only/few that question the exigency of their implementation of that right.
And for every "Yes, but have you thought about..." I get a "the clubs reserve the right" or a "find a place that doesn't have a dress code..." That's really what censorship is... conflating the existence of the right with the question about how it's perceived and implemented, and what that says about golf in general.
How many of those places exist? How many are held as the beacons of all that is great in golf? Every municipal golf course between me and Winter Park has "Proper Golf Attire Required" on their scorecard.
And the
great irony of the whole thing is that golf, with it's world-wide reach and 500 year history is being held hostage to a standard which has really only existed for perhaps the last century. The Bausch Archives are littered with dozens of photos from the early 20th century of golfers in all manner of dress. Question the sample size? Just how much on-course golf photography was happening in 1918? If it weren't so widespread that is surely a
great coincidence. The other great irony is that up until the past 50 years golf has been at the forefront of the sporting class fashion sense and now it lags.
So, you're an active, athletic, intelligent, personable, and kind human being and your interest is piqued in the great game of golf. You find a place that borderline deifies this look:
And readily accepts behavior that leaves courses looking like this:
Yet, refuses service to someone that might dress like this:
And is more than happy to do this (likely because they can actually bend over):
Very telling, I say.
Who is being pushed away by this? And perhaps more importantly, WHAT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FUTURE OF GOLF are being pushed away by...
A F&$*(#@ Dress Code.