It’s no big secret to the two of you who read this blog. Back before Tiger was Cheetah, I compiled a rather sizable collection of Nike Tiger Woods’ gear — check out the pic on this entry. It’s also no secret than I’m no longer a Tiger fan. In fact, these days the only thing that bothers me more than watching El Tigre hurl profanities on national TV is that gawd-awful Adidas stuff that Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day and the rest of the Adidas posse wears.
Perforating the shirt collar may or may not help Tiger hit more fairways. It will certainly make me not buy these shirts.
According to the good folks at the Khaki Crusader, the folks at The Three Stripes are moving away from that their steady diet of techno trash with Mr. Day, aka the Guy with the Hottest Wife on Tour. That’s good — I may even buy an Adidas shirt next year. Nike, however, is going the other way. Woody Hochswender reported on Golf.com a few days ago that the Swooshers are going uber, uh, “performance” with their $8 million man. (More.) According to a Nike spokesperson, Tiger has been “repositioned.” The idea, I guess, is to make the new Tiger gear as light-weight as possible, thereby, in theory, enhancing the wearer’s performance. The new shirts reportedly weigh 2.9 ounces as compared to the five-plus ounces of a regular golf shirt.
To which I say “you gotta be kidding.”
I’m all for evolution in golf apparel — and everything else, for that matter. Except maybe music. But this new stuff is just plain silly. Is Tiger really going to hit more fairways and get the putts to start dropping again because he has holes in his collars? (And from the looks of the pic, those holes, which appear to go down the back of the shirt, ain’t small.) More importantly, are Nike’s customers going to buy this stuff? I recall Nike did an ultra-light, top-stitched performance shirt back in 2008. Trevor Immelman wore a black one on Sunday when he won The Masters. The Seattle Team wore pink ones on Sunday during Greenspan Cup 2008 (check out the third pic in this entry). I don’t think I saw anyone else on Tour or on the street wearing one. The reason I rarely wear mine — it’s so light that it doesn’t keep me warm.
To be fair to the Nikesters, I may be pre-judging here, as I’ve only seen one picture of one piece in its upcoming Tiger collection. But I doubt it. According to Hochswender, Nike officials are saying they’ve essentially merged the Tiger Platinum- and Nike Tour Performance lines. The former was just barely tolerable — the latter, worn by guys like Stewart Cink and Paul Casey, is almost as bad as the aforementioned Adidas gear. Merging two bad lines does not a good line make. I’m guessing this line’s gonna end up looking like what a robot would wear if robots played golf. Come to think of it, Tiger is often accused of being a robo-golfer when he’s not throwing clubs and dropping f-bombs. This gear ain’t gonna help.
Here’s betting big that the new Adidas stuff significantly outperforms this new Nike techno gear at the cash register in 2012. Here’s betting even bigger than Mr. Day outperforms Mr. Woods on the course, too. Because at the end of the day you have to have some idea of where the ball is going to win on the PGA Tour. Tiger just doesn’t.
Butch Harmon might be able to change that.
Holes in his collars won’t.
