Bruce Selcraigon how the once-famous golf clothing brand has re-entered a market that tries hard but still hasn't cracked the style thing
In 1958, Arnold Palmer marched down the 18th fairway at Augusta a shot clear to win the Masters, his first major trophy. It was the year that golf writer Herbert Warren Wind coined the phrase "Amen Corner" to describe the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta. Wind borrowed the term from the jazz recording Shouting at Amen Corner.
The TV cameras captured Palmer's charisma and the audiences took to this new hero, who mingled as easily with people in the street as he did with presidents and film stars.
A beneficiary of this love-in was Penguin, the company that made Palmer's clothes. Fourteen years later, Jack Nicklaus wore the same brand when he won the 1972 US Open, the third of four wins in the event.
These two major championship dates bookend Penguin's story as the hippest brand in golf. It was the original cross over success. Throughout the 50s and 60s Bing Crosby and Bob Hope appeared in their ad campaigns. James Garner and Robert Wagner would often be seen playing a two ball at the Los Angeles Golf Club sporting their Penguin polos. Sinatra wore them, enough said.
Then Penguin went off the map; like many fashion brands, it went out of fashion.
In the mid 90s, the company was picked up cheap by the Perry Ellis leisurewear conglomerate and re-launched as a fashion brand. The last two years have seen a renaissance. This had as much to do with The OC as it did with golf. Fans of the rich kids in LA soap and more specifically of Seth the sensitive, geeky, trendy one, noticed the little bird logo appearing more and more frequently on his sensitive, trendy chest.
Last month, the brand went full circle, by re-entering the pro golf ranks, signing up Aaron Baddelely, the 26-year-old Australian former prodigy turned God squaddie, as its new poster boy in a three-year deal.
There is an irony here. Baddelely has the best nickname in golf - in some quarters he is known as "Dresses". Penguin joins a golf clothing market that has gone bananas. Sometimes literally.
The BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth this week marks the start of the summer season on the European Tour. It is also the start of the selling season, when the sport enjoys extended free to air television coverage, and the clothes they wear get valuable exposure.
Wentworth's fairways will morph into catwalks as this year's models show us what we really should be wearing. And it ain't chinos.
One of the peacocks of the PGA Tour is Colombian rubber man Camilo Villegas, who is contracted to wear J Lindeberg, the company credited with kick-starting the golfer as pimp look. "You can go funky one day and conservative the next," says Villegas, who sounds more like Naomi Campbell than former US Open champ Michael. "Every day I get comments, like if I wore yellow, it was like, 'Whoa, man.' Then I would wear pink, and it was like, 'Wow!' But if I wore black, it was like, 'Oh, what happened there?' But it's cool. I have fun with it. I might have 30 pairs of shoes and I usually take three pairs with me a week. I've got some funky pairs (like the orange Gator shoes I wore on the Florida swing), but they're hard to match."
Golf is moving on to the fashion pages. On the GQ website, there is a style agony uncle, who dispenses advice to wealthy young men who may have too much time on their hands. One worried gent posed the question: "I'm considering wearing golf shoes in place of the usual black or brown leather shoes for semi-formal evening occasions. I've yet to notice anyone else doing so. Is this innovative, or should golf shoes never leave the course?
Unsurprisingly, there are many brands seeking to cash in on the golf's profile. At this year's Masters, Puma endorsers Geoff Ogilvy, last year's US Open champion and Johan Edfors, took to Augusta's first tee in sparkly gold shoes.
"Classy gold, if that can be done," Ogilvy said before the tournament. "They are gold-gold, like (sprinter) Michael Johnson-in-Atlanta gold. They are nice. They are sweet."
Nick Dougherty has a deal with Tommy Hilfiger, and was recently photographed playing golf on the streets of New York for the company's new ad campaign.
Going a stage further, Ian Poulter, the European Tour's fashion alpha male, has started his own line of clothes. They are scheduled to hit Ireland next month.
"They would be for the younger, slimmer golfer," Niall Martin, owner of Martin Golfworks at Inis Oir in Athlone, one of four Irish outlets signed up to stock the new line. Prices for the Poulter range are expected to start at around €75 for a polo shirt.
And Paul McGinley will also be cutting more of a dash this week, having signed up with J Lindeberg. The Dubliner is fronting a move by the company to attract the older player, the ones who find it difficult to work the Austin Powers look.
Saville Row tailor William Hunt thinks this is a smart move. "Its embarrassing the stuff that's out there," he told The Irish Times. "Everyone jumped on Lindeberg's bandwagon and got it badly wrong. They have no instinct for it.
"It's gone stupid. There are grown men wearing orange trousers with piping down the leg. They look like should be playing in a brass band. Proper blokes don't wear piping down the side of their trousers, unless they're pumping gas in the southern states of America and are married to their cousin. And their sister."
Hunt is the man who made Ian Poulter's infamous Union Jack trousers for the first day of the 2004 Open and suited Manchester United's FA Cup team last Saturday.
"We are guilty of being faddy sometimes, but style is not a short term thing," says Hunt, who plays off an eight handicap.
H says from a designer's point of view the golf market is wide open. The major brands such as Nike, Adidas and specialist golf brands are pushing the sports wear look, made from synthetic materials.
"Sportswear is for the sports field and leisure wear is for the golf course," says Hunt, "Everybody is going on about breathable materials and the whole sportswear look. If you wear polyester you are going to stink after a round. Which is not very sexy is it?
"There's nothing better to wear next to your skin than cotton and natural fabrics. You go home in those and your wife is going to say you look stupid. Why would you wear clothes that women think you look less attractive in? Can you imagine wearing pink spotty pants and your girlfriend saying you look great?"
Darren Clarke needs some advice, says Hunt. "He's a chunky lad, he should be wearing very simple lines. He's not a bad looking lad and he isn't unfit. But the stuff he chooses to wear doesn't suit him. He's trying too hard. He's 40 and got spiky hair. I'd tell him 'you have hair at 40, I wish I had, but for God's sake comb it'."
Underlying the notion of golfer as fashion icon is the nagging doubt that the world that exists beyond the clubhouse and the pages of Golf Punk is not buying it.
According to Polly Vernon, fashion writer for the Observer, the words fashion and golf should never appear in the same sentence.
"Ian Poulter is an actual danger to style. He could do style damage by accidentally brushing up against it. And he has awful hair. Wearing many colours at the same time does not make you fashionable," she says. "Tiger Woods looks okay in a preppy kind of a way, but in no way qualifies as a fashion icon."
William Hunt agrees that the difference between fashion and style is a gulf that most players will never cross.
His list of heroes is taken from the 70s, which in the cyclical nature of fashion, is the new 1950s. "Dickie Henderson with a golf club over his shoulder walking on to the stage at the London Palladium. He looked like he'd just strolled there from the golf club. That generation seemed a million miles away from us. Val Doonican too, you couldn't imagine ever doing anything he would do. Now we can. I love the James Bond at Stoke Park thing. Tom Watson and Tom Weiskopf, both had great looks. But Gary Player was the most stylish man ever to walk the course."
It is against this backdrop that "Dresses" Baddeley attempts to return the Penguin brand to its place atop golf's fashion hot lists. Like Arnold Palmer all those years ago he's out there pushing the product, mixing with the big names from film, TV and the music industry. In more ways than one it's 1958 all over again.
