The Spring Kickoff at SPCC

Today I braved the elements to play in the 2013 Spring Kickoff at Sand Point Country Club. I detailed the event on SandPointCup.com — the most relevant facts are (1) I chaired the event, and (2) my team didn’t win. I did, however, debut my azalea pink pants:

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2013 Masters Script

In 2011 I started a personal tradition of doing a Masters script. For whatever reason I didn’t do one in 2012 — some tradition — but this year, with me counting the seconds ’til Masters Thursday, I decided to do one again:

Two of these four combos will see a golf course.

Like the ones I did in ’11 (yes, that’s “ones,” plural), this script wasn’t without thought. The Thursday pants haven’t gotten the call since George W. Bush was president: if they didn’t get the nod for a pro-am on Masters Thursday I’d have to put them in the donation pile — and I sure can’t do that.

Friday’s shirt is from Bo van Pelt’s Alial Fital script. If I could design an AF shirt this would be it. (Buy now.)

Saturday’s hot pink pants are a new purchase from Bonobos. Seemed a smart call for Saturday’s Spring Kickoff at Sand Point CC, although it is supposed to rain.

Sunday’s green pants — well, ya gotta wear green on Masters Sunday, and those are the only green pants I own. (This particular combo looks a bit like Luke Donald’s Friday garb.)

As it turns out I’m not the only guy in the world not playing in The Masters who nevertheless does a script for it. Tim “Lumpy” Herron just released his — couch potato chic.

Good stuff. But I like mine better.

UPDATE: Golf Magazine voted Bo Van Pelt the best dressed player at the 2013 Masters. (More.) The shirt he was wearing in their favorite shirt? The blue one with the contrasting green color shown above.

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In Praise of The Cordial Churchman

From time to time I use this column to sing the praises of companies and products I fancy. Most recently I wrote a few love pieces for Alial Fital (1I2), a now Seattle-based clothing startup that makes very cool golf polos, among other things. I doubt my nice words made much of a difference to AF’s bottom line – I doubt either of my readers bought more than a shirt or two – but I believe in saying something nice when I have something nice to say.

So it is with pleasure that I write today about a company that recently caught my eye. The company is called The Cordial Churchman, and they make bow ties.

Lots of them.

For fellas.

For their sons.

For weddings.

For church.

You get the idea.

The product I like most on TCC isn’t a product so much as a service. For $29 you can send a necktie to the five-person, South Carolina-based company and they’ll convert it into a bow tie. (Buy now I More.) Last month I sent them two neckties that were unlikely to ever again get the call. They sent me back two bow ties and voila:

TCC converted two of my old neckties into bow ties, worn here by Reese and me.

As neckties they sat at the end of the bench. As bow ties they’re in the starting lineup – and they got the call for Easter!

What I like most about TCC, however, transcends their product and service offering. The TCC folks just look like good people. And the fact that the company’s patriarch, a preacher, wears a bow tie every day is just plain cool. I don’t mind saying that I wish I could do that, but it just wouldn’t fly here in the uber-casual Pacific Northwest.

Regardless, this is a company I take pleasure doing business with. I’ll be adding to my bow tie collection in the weeks and months ahead.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to make a bow tie look good with a golf polo …

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My New Ecco Tour Hybrid Wingtips — WOW!

I try not to blog about myself these days — especially my clothes. But check out what arrived in the mail today courtesy of my buddy Jon Gaston:

Believe it or not, these are golf shoes. That didn’t stop me from wearing ‘em to bed last night.

I’m guessing I’ll be wearing these bad boys for the rest of my life.

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A Recommendation for Ryder Cup Captain Tom Watson: Alial Fital

I was pleased at this morning’s news that the PGA of America has named Tom Watson its 2014 U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Going with a guy who’ll be 65 by Cup time represents a big step out of the box for the PGA, which has lately stuck to picking guys in their mid-forties to early fifties as captain, lest the older captains be unable to “relate” to their younger players.

All that relating by younger captains to their players/peers isn’t working for the U.S. team, which has now lost seven of the last nine Cups. But I digress.

In terms of what this means to the ever-important issue of U.S. team apparel, early conventional wisdom is that Watson will go with Ralph Lauren. He’s a longtime RL guy and, according to Mike McAllister at Chapeau Noir, Davis Love III’s RL uniforms for the 2012 Ryder Cup (shown at the bottom of this piece) were “generally well received.”

I hope, however, that TW goes out of the box with at least some of his wardrobe selections. There are plenty of great smallish companies releasing outstanding golf apparel these days that the eight-time major winner can choose from. And for my money one of them sticks out.

Alial Fital.

It’s no secret to either of my readers that I’m a big fan of the now Seattle-based company (more) and I think TW would be well advised to give AF a serious look. The almost two-year old company provided polos to Bo Van Pelt on the PGA Tour in 2012: AF did such a good job that BVP turned down a much more lucrative offer from a household name to stay in AF’s tow. (More.) AF has done some nice “American” polos in the past few years:

AF’s ’12 U.S. Open polo.

AF’s ’12 Ryder Cup polo, which sold out in twenty-one hours.

and while U.S. captains have not always gone big with the red, white and blue lately — remember the Saturday lilacs of ’10 — they certainly should.

Lastly, AF polos are all made in the USA, something that should matter to the uber-patriotic Watson.

None of this is to say that I’m putting my chips on AF’s chances. TW’s long-standing relationship with Ralph Lauren is going to be tough to overcome and AF is still a very small company, a fact which will no doubt turn off the ultra-establishment PGA. Still, in a perfect world AF would be well in the running. Heck, I can put together a uniform set based on my favorite AF’s now. Think this

this

and this

don’t look better than, say, this

this

and this

I do.

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Why I Love Alial Fital — And Why You Should, Too

As anyone who’s known me for more than a few years knows, I used to be an entrepreneur. I came up with Facebook before the world’s social network existed: the network of friends you’d have built on the second iteration of TheFence.com would have formed networks of interconnected “fences,” and the question wouldn’t have been “how many Facebook friends do you have?” — it would have been “how long is your fence?” Unfortunately I ran out of money for that one.

A few years later I came up with Betcha.com — basically an Ebay for bets. As I’ve detailed in this space at length, I ran out of luck on that one (or, more accurately, I never had any). Someday, someone’s going to get very rich when they launch their rip-off of Betcha.com. Maybe not Mark Zuckerberg rich, but they’ll have more than a few yachts to water ski behind.

As a guy who almost made it, I find it too painful to follow the entrepreneur/start-up scene these days. And while I don’t root against the little guy, I don’t care enough to root for him, either. That’s called envy.

Startup clothier Alial Fital lies at the intersection of Saville Row …

Recently, however, I discovered a company that captured my attention, my affinity and, ultimately, my business. The company is called Alial Fital and, until a link to its website ended up in my Facebook margin, I’d never heard of it. AF makes polo shirts. Not just ordinary polo shirts. With designs that called to mind both Saville Row and Magnolia Lane, AF polos were the coolest polos I’d ever seen.. And when I saw that PGA Tour player Bo Van Pelt was wearing them on Tour — well, I had to take a closer look.

and Magnolia Lane. For guys who care about their appearance, that’s a very good place.

I’m a guy who’s into golf, style and golf style (1I2I3), so I was quite intrigued. And the more I read the more I liked. AF was founded by — and is apparently run by — Gibran Hamdan, a thirty-something dude who bounced around both the NFL and CFL in an earlier life. I don’t know Mr. Hamdan, who sounds like a bit of a renaissance man, but suffice it to say he was doing a lot I liked. On the product side, AF was producing polos unlike the world had ever seen. Their unique contrasting collars and plackets — gingham checked, striped and the like — made them quite distinctive, not easy for a polo shirt. AF was zigging while the big boys were zagging: whereas the Nikes (more) and Pumas of the world were (and still are) producing lowest-common-denominator pieces that look like they belong in a Central American outlet mall (example), AF was producing seriously stylish pieces that would fly off the rack in the Nordstrom men’s department. And AF was getting rave reviews in the blogosphere (1I2) — not an insignificant matter given that one of the bloggers was Mike McAllister, a golf clothing writer for whom I have great respect.

As much as I was impressed by the AF product, I liked the company’s presentation even more. Whereas many start-up companies represent themselves as being bigger than they are, AF seemed to embrace its smallness. Take a look at the AF blog and it’s hard to imagine the company is much more than a handful of guys in a Minneapolis office. I appreciated its transparency and honesty: like me, they agree with the ol’ saying that you should never pretend to be something you’re not. Its website was better than Playboy for a clothes horse like me — the lookbook at the bottom of this page being its centerfold proxy. Most importantly, AF is doing all this with a sense of humility. Unlike, say, the guy at Iliac Golf, a company I want to like but just can’t, AF’s website and Facebook posts are light on references to “I,” something I very much like in people and companies.

Despite my affinity I could not pull the trigger. Most polos were listed at $85, quite a dig into a not-very-deep pocket. ($85 is a lot better than $245, which is what Iliac is asking for one of its limited editions shirts.) And every time I had enough spirits in me to pull the trigger, the shirt I wanted was unavailable in my size — the always elusive “Large.” That was understandable given that AF only produces one hundred shirts of each style, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.

Last week, however, AF introduced some new polos and I finally pulled the trigger. On four shirts.

When Santa Claus — er, the mailman — finally arrived, I wasn’t disappointed.

Seriously sweet packaging.

My shirts arrived in a box that looked like it was made of alligator skin. Accompanying my shirts was a hand-written thank you note from Mr. Hamdan himself. Even better than the packaging where the shirts themselves. “Very dope” is about the right phrase. To paraphrase Mr. McAllister, AF’s microfiber shirts are an outstanding combination of feel, craftsmanship, style, technology and innovation. Suffice it to say that when I wear these polos out I’ll have the nicest shirt in the place, whether that’s a country club grill room, airplane cabin or backyard barbecue. And because the side splits are detailed to match the collars, they’ll look good either tucked or untucked. These AF’s will immediately go into my starting lineup — and with 150+ polos in my closet (including 40+ from Greenspan Cup and 30+ Tiger rapidly-aging Tiger shirts [more]), that’s no small achievement.

AF’s distinctive detailing gives their polos a serious “wow” factor.

My guess is that AF will go a long way — if it wants to. The company seems to have the marketing element figured out: its Facebook/Twitters feeds are always outstanding, and the less-than-two-year-old company already provides shirts for pro athletes like Van Pelt, Larry Fitzgerald (NFL), Brandon Weeden (NFL) and Tristan Herbert (auto racing). (Van Pelt is wearing AF (tucked) on the PGA Tour: his U.S. Open polo narrowly edged the Eagle shirt from Quagmire’s Arnie line (see the first pic of me at Turnberry in this set) for Golf Shirt of the Year in the Jenkins household. Fitzgerald has designed a few shirts for AF: the Arizona Cardinal star is wearing AF (untucked) in Italy.) It’ll have to figure out its distribution — you can only get so rich selling individual polos online — but that’s an easy problem to solve. It’ll have to expand beyond polos –again, easy enough. It’ll have to figure out how to get its price points down — a tougher task if it continues to remain just a manufacturer and continues to do its manufacturing in the United States. And it will have to bridge the brand gap from style to lifestyle, something that apparel brands must do to make it big (most recently Travis Mathew). If its execution to date is any indication, that, too, will be a gap it has no problem bridging.

Any company that would (1) produce this polo, (2) publicly admit that its biggest celebrity won’t wear it, and (3) name the shirt for that refusal (“The Design Bo Van Pelt Refuses to Wear on Tour”) has got to be pretty cool.

Regardless of what direction AF goes, I count myself as a new, loyal and enthusiastic customer. A bunch of good guys making outstanding, cutting edge products — well-made clothes for well-dressed men. It’s a vision I appreciate pursued by a company I can happily root for.

Next in my lineup — AF’s Ryder Cup sweetness. I’ve seen a sneak peak, and it did not disappoint.

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The PGA Tour’s Best-Dressed Players: My 2012 List

With the 2012 PGA Tour season coming to an end, I thought it high time to do another “best dressed players on the PGA Tour” list. (My 2010 and all-time lists.) The list wasn’t particularly easy to compile: most players on Tour are sorely lacking in on-course style. In fact most of the household names on this “best-dressed” list display none of it whatsoever. A few guys, however, do:

1. Adam Scott. Always perfectly-tailored in Aquascutum and never seems to have an off-day.

2. Graeme McDowell. The 2010 U.S. Open champ’s Kartel line is some of the most stylish stuff out there (wish I could afford it) and his Open Championship script might have been Script of the Year on Tour.

3. Luke Donald. Like I said back in ’10, “(n)othing spectacular from the Polo guy, but he just has a certain je ne sais qua that most players don’t.”

4. Jonathan Byrd. Always stylish, I criticized him back in ’10 for his lack of pizazz. No longer a problem (see here).

5. Geoff Ogilvy. Mike McAllister at Chapeau Noir Golf said it better than I can.

6. Webb Simpson. Like Scott, never seems to have an off-day. Might be a bit higher but his very-preppy looks lacks a little in pzazz.

7. Ian Poulter. Has dropped a bit since ’10 because his ensembles never seem to change.

8. Bo Van Pelt. According to BVP, Alial Fital‘s Gibran Hamdan coordinates his outfits from head to toe. He’s doing a great job. BVP is one of maybe four guys on Tour (Scott, McDowell, Byrd) whose presence on the leaderboard will get me to tune in — just to see what they’re wearing.

9. Kyle Stanley. Not overly flashy, but his Dunning gear always looks perfect.

10. Ryan Moore. Don’t love his style, but at least he has it, and the best of Quagmire’s Arnie Wear line is some of the best stuff out there.

Honorable mention goes to Justin Rose (liking him in Ashworth apparel but the footwear could use work); Jesper Parnevik (would be a top fiver but not really “on Tour” anymore); and Ryo Ishikawa (non-stop pzazz would be in my top ten if he toned it down on occasion).

Dishonorable mention — well, just about everyone on this list. As one commenter noted, just wearing expensive clothes supplied by a sponsor does not make one “well dressed.”

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My ‘Best in Shows’ From the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show

(Please note: I attended the Show at the behest of my friend Jeff Benezra of GolfDiscount.com; I was there as his cameraman. The opinions set out below belong to me and me only and do not necessarily reflect Jeff’s views or the views of GolfDiscount.com’s management team.)

It’s no secret to my two readers — I don’t lack for opinions. I enjoy doing lists, especially ones about golf, and I’ve blogged in this space about history’s best-dressed golfers, my favorite golf apparel brands and even done a few bullet points on how Phil Mickelson can fix his look. I’d have given my own “awards” previously if only I had reason to.

Now I do. The Nick Jenkins “Best in Show” Awards for the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show. I’m giving awards in the areas of Apparel (my passion), Clubs and Miscellaneous. And the winners are …

APPAREL
In the category of apparel the best I saw at the Show was that of Back 9 (back9usa.com). Better known for their head covers — their Heritage and Varsity models (shop) won Best New Product at the Show — the Houston-based company’s shirts and hats strike just the right balance between classic and modern and would look fantastic on Tour pros, weekend golfers, or teenagers at the movies. I equate their gear to Tommy Hilfiger with a classic golfer- rather than preppy twist — a cleaner, East Coast version of the more beachy, West Coast Travis Mathew.

Back 9 wins for Best Apparel (albeit with a limited line), while ...

The problem with Back 9 is that, with only nine shirts, a handful of hats and no pants, shorts or outerwear, it is hardly a complete line. In terms of full lines, my winner is Ashworth (shop). Once a brand dying on the vine, the folks at Adidas have revitalized Ashworth in the last few years. Out are the heavy cottons and elbow-length sleeves that Fred Couples made ubiquitous in the 1990′s. In are more technical lightweight fabrics in designs that, like Back 9′s, look great on or off the golf course. In terms of full collections, Ashworth’s 2012 offering might be the best I’ve ever seen.

Ashworth gets the nod for best full line.

CLUBS
No surprise here. TaylorMade’s Rocketballz fairways metals were the best clubs I saw at the show. Enough has been written and said about them that I need not add to the pile here.

The real story for me — and not in a good way — was Callaway’s new RAZR Fit driver. The folks at Golf Digest loved it — indeed, it was an Editor’s Choice on their 2012 Hot List. I hit it — and hated it. The shaft in the models I hit both said “R” — that’s Regular to the folks in Rio Linda — but they felt like XXS — as in “only a guy with Alvaro Quiros‘ swing speed can hit this thing.” Maybe the shafts were mismarked, in which case I take back everything I said here. But if not, I can’t see myself (or most people) keeping this thing on the golf course. Too bad, because after five years with the same Ping driver, I may be in the market for a new metal numbered one.

MISCELLANEOUS
My winner in the Miscellaneous category is Evolve Golf‘s Epoch tees. I know — tees? But these pegs are pretty sweet. They’re made out of recycled materials and designed in such a way as to minimize the friction between ball and tee. That design results in a 4-6 yard gain off the tee — at least according to Evolve’s research. 40-50 Tour pros use them — including, not insignificantly, Tiger Woods. (Evolve can’t say that, but I can, and ironically enough, I saw one holding up Tiger’s Nike whitey in a tee/club/ball closeup on the telecast of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. Robert Rock still beat Cheetah, but I can’t attribute that to the Nikester’s lesser tees.) And they are uber-durable. Jeff and I played 54 holes in the two days after the show. I didn’t break a single tee, Jeff broke one — on his 52nd hole. That’s 108 holes and one broken tee.

Evolve Golf's Epoch line of tees wins in the Best Miscellaneous category.

All of my awards come with one big caveat — namely, they reflect my opinions and mine alone, and they are no doubt a function of me — a middle-aged, traditional, budget-conscious dude who lives in a town where it isn’t sunny and 75 every day. My opinions do not necessarily correspond to a show “buzz” factor, and they do not reflect my predictions for success at the cash register. Travis Mathew Johnson’s new Leisure Society apparel, for example, made quite the buzz and, if their Facebook photos are any indication, it’s getting mainstream media coverage already. (The gal in the orange talking to John Cook is Golf Channel‘s Win McMurry.) It’ll no doubt kill it in terms of sales — at least with buyers at resorts and country clubs. I just didn’t happen to care for the brand (sort of a Palm Springs version of Tommy Bahama) or the clothes — resort stuff, so not in the first string of most ordinary guys’ wardrobes. Travis Mathew Johnson’s old company, Travis Mathew, also impressed at the Show both in terms of presentation and line breadth and depth. And most paid opinionmakers would probably rate TM ahead of Back 9 and Ashworth if for no other reason than that’s where the wind’s blowing. I wouldn’t: too much of its line was way out there and would have too many country club swells looking like Bubba Watson wannabe’s — not exactly what I want people whispering about me.

Be all that as it may, you are reading the Jenkins family blog. And for my (little) money, the folks at Back 9, Ashworth, Taylor Made and Evolve really nailed it. They win my awards, and they can count on my business.

Ed note. There was obviously a lot of other cool stuff there, some of which I didn’t see. Among them: the Swingbyte swing sensor; the Superflex bands golf kit; and basically most of the stuff from Winston Collection. (I saw the WC stuff but decided to give my Miscellaneous BiS Award to Evolve’s tee — just a bit more golfie.

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Back from the PGA Merchandise Show

Last night I got back to Seattle after spending five days in Orlando, the first three of which at the PGA Merchandise Show. My ostensible purpose was to video my buddy Jeff Benezra’s interviews with golf industry insiders; he did the shots for a character he’s creating for DiscountGolf.com.

A few pics:

We spent day one at Demo Day (Orange County National), where ...

Benezra demoed every club, device and contraption he could get his hands on.

We paid $13 to park in a dirt field. (Good business model for the owners.)

Ashworth ....

and Sligo impressed ...

but little guy Back 9 had my favorite gear.

We drove an hour -- and paid lots of tolls -- to find breakfast at Mini's.

Benezra with three-time PGA Tour winner Kenny Knox and 1983 Bay Hill champion (and now Ping club designer) Mike Nicolette.

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What the @^&%#* is Nike Doing?, Part 2

A few months back I expressed my disgust for some of the new stuff Nike Golf is putting out — specifically, the new, more techie Tiger Woods gear.

Turns out there was more.

Mike McAllister at ChapeauNoir.com reported the other day on the new Nike Dunk NG, uh, “golf” shoes:

As bad as that shirt with the holes in it was, these shoes might be even worse. All I can say is that basketball shoes are made for the basketball court. Golf shoes are made for the golf course. The two do not and should never cross over.

Safe to say Nike Golf won’t be hiring me anytime soon.

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