The Nonsense of the Golfing Sock

#TEAMBUNKER share our insights, anecdotes and memories of the great game of golf... 

The prospect of a round of golf excites me more than anything else in my small world. Not the opportunity to score well or win a match but just to play, pure and simple.

 

Being told what to wear, on a golf course of all places, will knock the stuffing out of that pretty quickly. I’ll never understand dress codes but a tiny part of my brain can grasp the notion that turning up in your favourite mankini is a no-no. To be told by a club what type of sock is a yes-yes, with everything that’s going on in the world and golf looking to be more inclusive from every corner, is mind-blowing.

 

In the past few weeks I found myself in a pro shop, with a mask on my face and some sanitizer to my side, swiping a machine to the tune of £5 for a new pair of white socks. The black ones that I had on, of the same length and fabric, were apparently unacceptable.

 

To play golf at next year’s Open Championship venue (in shorts, ‘above the knee’, naturally) you will need to be donning a pair of knee-length socks which, if you are under the age of 65 or haven’t grown up in these circles, is unfathomable. I’m not sure I even own a pair of knee-length socks let alone want to put myself through the trauma of looking like an extra from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

 

This is club golf where once you tee off you are generally left to your own devices. If you are offended from a fairway or hole away by the length of a stranger’s socks then maybe golf (or the outdoors) is not for you. Another reputable course, one of the UK's greatest, insists that, in the event of wearing shorts, the rest of your lower-half ensemble should be ‘short, predominantly white, socks or coloured long socks’.

 

It’s not the point but you’ll likely be paying over £100 for the privilege which you’ll probably have to add a tenner to when you have to buy a pair of the club’s socks.

 

I've played golf for nearly 40 years and so I have some sort of mental grounding for some of its oddities. If I were a newcomer or someone considering cycling or I was having second thoughts due to the general expense of it all then being advised that my socks weren't quite right then this might be enough to get on my bike.