They reckon fashion tends to turn full circle every 20 or 30 years, so if you’ve still got animal print clothing in the cupboard and combat boots gathering dust, you might soon be a style icon again.

If you’re a golfer, not so much, because golf is one fashion that doesn’t tend to circle back. The days of Bobby Locke and Gene Sarazen winning Majors wearing plus fours and knickerbockers, rolled-up long-sleeve silk shirts, ties – bow or traditional – are only to be found in faded photographs.

These days virtually anything goes. While watching the final round of a Sunshine Tour event this season, I saw a player, who was getting a lot of TV exposure because he was on the first page of the leaderboard, wearing shorts, a shirt untucked over them and a bucket hat. And no one blinked.

There is nothing in the dress code that says it’s not acceptable, although there would have been a few old-timers on the verandah spluttering into their gin and tonics.

PGA Tour pro JJ Spaun had the media in a froth when he appeared at the Sentry Tournament of Champions with an untucked shirt. Sections of social media lit up in faux outrage, and when Spaun was asked about his sense of fashion, he replied: ‘It’s Hawaii, isn’t it?’ His apparel sponsors, Puma, weren’t fazed either and the publicity they received was better than any advertising they paid for that week.

It’s part of golf’s attempt to ‘grow the game’ that there’s no strict crackdown on what men and women wear – although women are comparatively saintly when adhering to dress code. You can pretty much pitch up at any public golf course these days wearing what you like, within reason. Unless you’re former Major champion John Daly. He’s regularly filmed playing barefoot while smoking and drinking. In 2020 he even hit a hole-in-one while barefoot at a charity golf event in Canada.

Not that playing barefoot would be allowed at private clubs, and most certainly not Augusta National, even if Spaniard Jose Luis Ballester, the US Amateur champion, received no official blowback for urinating into Rae’s Creek alongside the 13th hole. When Grand Slam champion Gene Sarazen was hitting his ‘shot that was heard around the world’ at the 1935 Masters, the only shot heard would have been from a gun if Ballester had answered the call of nature at the time.

The world has moved on.

South Africa’s fashionista is Erik van Rooyen, who wears joggers and no socks, while Australia’s Jason Day has trended tracksuit bottoms and hoodies.

Professional men’s golf is also caught between two stools, where most pros wear long pants – but there is a growing influence of shorts, especially in warmer climes. Which brings me back to the golfer wearing shorts, an untucked shirt and a bucket hat.

It’s a way to keep cool in the African sun and while it might split opinion, it shows that golf fashion is increasingly determined by what the players feel comfortable in. We’ve gone from one extreme (blazer, buttoned-up shirt and tie and plus fours) to a barefoot John Daly wearing an untucked shirt and floral shorts.

The sweet spot has to lie somewhere in between.

Gary Lemke