Does Jacket And Tie Still Have A Place In Golf?

When I was a teenager in the mid 1990s, my home team made it to the final of the Aberdeen and District Junior Pennant League, a match that was played over the magnificent Balgownie Links at Royal Aberdeen. After the game, (which we lost,) we went into the old-school locker room in the clubhouse and changed into jacket and tie before heading into the dining room for the official prizegiving. We were all nearly as excited about that as we had been about the match itself. 

Putting on jacket and tie made us feel important, like we had achieved something. We felt like a Ryder Cup team! My main memory of the day is not of losing out to the boys from Westhill but of looking in the mirror in the Balgownie clubhouse trying to get the length of my tie spot on. Jacket and tie has played a part in my golfing life and I still play golf, so therefore jacket and tie has a place in golf… Done… Well, no, I have more.

The senior section at my golf club (Banchory) has a Christmas party each year. It’s a fun event that I was lucky enough to be invited to a few years ago when I was club captain. There’s singing and laughing and a very helpful contribution to our annual bar takings. It’s well attended, and all the men put on jacket and tie for it. It’s not obligatory, they want to. As far as I’m aware, all those senior golfers are a part of golf. They all play three times a week anyway, plus they pay their annual membership subscriptions and, unless they’re telling me fibs, many of them read Golf Monthly.

Stats often trotted out by the golfing, and wider, media, show that the average age of a golf club member in the UK is 60 something and that two thirds of members are over 50. Ostensibly that is a worrying stat. We, of course, want to encourage young people into the game and there are numerous initiatives and organisations working very hard to do so. But the reality is, that stat is inevitable. Of course the majority of golf club members (and golfers) are older – It’s an expensive sport and it’s one that takes up a great deal of time, i.e. it’s ideal in retirement.

At last count, there are some 5.3 million golfers in the UK. If two thirds of them are over 50, that’s 3.5 million… That’s a lot of people and they are very important for the health of golf. I know we need golf to be as appealing as possible to young people but we have to remember older people too.

We in the golf media, including me, have written and spoken at length about how important it is to modernise aspects of the game, to embrace new styles of dress, to be less prescriptive and stuffy. Basically, we want to attract youngsters to golf. It’s cool if someone wants to wear a hoodie or a short skirt, it’s cool if someone wears a cap backwards or plays music as they go round (as long as not too loud!) But we should also remember, it’s cool if someone wants to wear jacket and tie. Why not? There’s space in golf for everyone isn’t there?

Some of the more traditional clubs still require jacket and tie in parts of their clubhouses. That’s surely up to them and, if the members of those clubs would rather not have those requirements, they would be able to vote out the dress code at the AGM… They don’t seem to do it. They obviously like putting on jacket and tie. Those members have a place in golf, just like a new-style influencer who feels more comfortable in super-casual golf gear… Both are fine.

There’s a trend in the media just now to deride middle aged and older men – They’re the lowest of the low. But they do exist and it’s rather discriminatory to ignore or exclude them. Within golf, there are plenty of middle aged and older men who would rather never don a jacket and tie again, (obviously fine), but there are also plenty of people, from juniors up to centenarians who do quite like dressing up a bit for an occasion, whether it’s the annual prizegiving or just Sunday lunch… There’s a place for those people in golf and anyone who says otherwise is as bigoted as the person who says there’s no place for someone with a pierced nose or a hooded sweatshirt.

You might not want to wear jacket and tie and that’s ok. There are perhaps only a handful of clubs that would still require you to – Don’t go to them. But if you do like wearing jacket and tie – go for it! I might dress up right now to go down to my club for a pint – I’m part of golf and I quite want to.