Somewhere around 2005, golf clothing stopped being clothing. It became equipment. Every polo was the same shiny polyester, every pair of pants had a stretch panel and a hidden pocket for a phone nobody puts there, and every logo was placed by a committee. It all wicked moisture beautifully. It also had the soul of a rental car. I'm Shaun Colquhoun, I coach golf in Las Vegas, and I've been thinking about what golf clothes should feel like for about as long as I've been thinking about course management. Here's where I landed, with the 702 Golf lookbook to show it.
How we got to shiny
Blame the tour, lovingly. When the best players in the world started wearing performance fabric in the early 2000s, every brand followed, and the whole sport went from cotton and wool to polyester in about five years. The clothes got lighter and cooler and easier to wash, and that was real progress, especially in a place like Las Vegas where June on a golf course is a weather event.
But something went with it. A knit polo has weight and drape; it moves when you walk and it looks like something a person chose. A dry-fit polo looks like a uniform, because that's what it is. Golf went from the best-dressed sport on earth, Hogan in a cashmere cardigan, Palmer with his sleeves rolled, to the only sport where a grown man's entire wardrobe is the same shirt in nine colors.
What's changing
Look at what the younger players and the smaller brands are doing now and you'll see knit everywhere: textured polos with real collars, cable vests, coach jackets, bucket hats, pleated shorts, socks with a stripe. Golf streetwear is a real category. The country club look got pulled apart and put back together by people who also skate and watch basketball, and what came out is the best golf has looked since the seventies.
The trick, and the reason most brands get it wrong, is that the comeback isn't about costumes. It's about feel. Fabric you want to touch. Colors that come from somewhere. A fit that looks like you own the shirt instead of borrowed it from the pro shop. That's what I wanted 702 Golf to be, and these six looks are the answer.
Look 01: Short Grass Social
The piece the whole line is built around. A waffle-knit polo in sand with a single green-and-gold chest stripe, an open collar that actually sits right, and the 702 Golf mark small on the chest. Pleated green shorts, a striped sock, a clean shoe. It's the shirt for a Saturday round followed by a long lunch, which in this town is the whole point of golf. It looks like Vegas in 1975, in the best way, and it feels like a sweater that learned to breathe.
Look 04: Desert Heat
Honesty check: it's 108 degrees in July, and nobody's wearing a waffle knit at 2 p.m. So this is the performance polo, and it's the one I teach in. Piqué, not shiny; a green body with a sand shoulder panel; and Keep it in the short grass stitched small on the back of the collar, where the student standing behind you reads it on the fourth lesson. Sand pleated shorts, a braided belt, a five-panel cap. Performance clothing with a point of view, which is the thing the big brands keep forgetting is allowed.
Look 06: First Tee
From October through March, every tee time before nine in Las Vegas starts in the 40s and finishes in the 70s. This is the answer: a short-sleeve quarter-zip wind shirt over a cream long-sleeve base, green piping on the raglan seams, a gold zipper, slogan across the back yoke. It comes off at the turn and lives in the cart until next week. It's the piece that reads "the pro" from fifty yards, and it's the one I'd put on every student who takes the morning lessons.
Look 03: Range Rat
The coach jacket. Dark green with a black corduroy collar, cream piping on the sleeve, snap front, the slogan big across the back in cream and gold. A cream tee with the stacked mark, wide green trousers, a bucket hat. This one's for the range at dusk, the PGM students, and anyone who grew up thinking golf clothes were for someone else. It's the piece that makes a nineteen-year-old want to be on the range at six in the morning, and I say that as someone who has to get nineteen-year-olds to the range at six in the morning.
Look 05: Sunday Money
The cable-knit vest. Cream, with a green and gold tipped V-neck, over a white polo, with green trousers and a cream belt. The slogan is small and low on the back, the way a club logo would be. This is the look for the member-guest, the Sunday game with money on it, and the three months a year Las Vegas gets to dress like Scotland. It's the one piece that makes the brand look like it's been around for forty years, which is a trick the best new brands all pull.
Look 02: After Hours
The varsity. Night green corduroy body, cream sleeves, striped rib trim, gold snaps, a chenille 702 Golf patch on the chest and the slogan big on the back in chenille too. Cream trousers, a green shoe. This is the one you wear off the course: dinner after the round, the patio at dusk, the thing a golfer puts on to not look like a golfer and end up looking more like one. It's the most expensive piece to make and the smallest run we'll do, and it's the one people will ask about.
What golf clothes should feel like
Here's my whole philosophy of golf apparel, and it's the same as my philosophy of golf: fewer, better decisions. One polo you'd wear to dinner. One layer for the cold mornings. One hat you don't take off. Fabric with weight and texture. A color story that means something; ours is night green, fairway green, sand, white, and gold, which is a desert golf course at seven in the morning. And a slogan that's a way to play, not a brand platitude. Keep it in the short grass is on the back of everything because it's the sentence I say more than any other on a lesson.
Golf deserves to look like golf again. Not a costume, not a uniform. Clothes.
The snapback is first out, then the Short Grass Social polo, then the quarter-zip. The email list on the home page hears first. And if you want the coaching that goes with the clothes, that's here.
Questions people ask
Is knit too hot for Las Vegas golf?
From May to September, at midday, yes. That's what the piqué polo and the early tee time are for. The rest of the year, a waffle knit is the best thing you can wear on a golf course in this town.
What's the dress code at most Las Vegas courses?
Collared shirt, no denim, no cargo shorts, at most of them. Every look here passes, including the coach jacket over a collared base. Check the course if you're unsure; a few private clubs still want tucked shirts.
When can I buy 702 Golf clothing?
Hats first, soon. Join the email list on the home page and you'll get one message when they drop, and nothing else.
Who designed these?
Shaun Colquhoun, with the 702 Golf identity built around the stacked 702 mark with the ball-on-tee zero. The looks are concept illustrations; production pieces will follow the same colors, logos, and placements.
