My friend’s golf club, which I may want to join one day, has a stupid rule:
You must wear a belt and tuck in your shirt while playing golf.
Can you imagine insisting that a grown-ass adult tuck in their shirt to play a game?
I hate this nonsense.
While playing golf in Florida last month, I was asked to remove my hat while eating breakfast in the dining room before our round.
Also so stupid.
I was about to play golf. I was wearing shorts, a shirt, and golf spikes.
But someone is going to tell me — a grown-ass man — to remove my hat because it’s what?
Offensive?
Distracting?
Ruining the atmosphere of the breakfast buffet?
Degrading the reputation of the establishment?
You’ll serve me alcohol at 8:00 in the morning, but I can’t wear the hat I’ll be wearing all day?
Stupid.
I’ve heard all the arguments favoring dress codes, and I’m not implying they are all wrongheaded. Some dress codes certainly serve a purpose.
But most are very stupid.
Yes, when I arrive at a golf course, I should be wearing a shirt — preferably one that does not contain an offensive or inflammatory message. If the club requires that shirt to have a collar, so be it. It’s a stupid and purposeless requirement, but it’s a small price to pay to prevent fussy little men from throwing their little tantrums.
I’m even willing to accept that I should wear a decent pair of pants or shorts. No ripped jeans or cut-offs, though I wouldn’t mind if they were allowed, too. I wouldn’t wear them to play golf, but I wouldn’t begrudge someone else from wearing them.
Also, no flip-flops, bathing suits, or sleeveless shirts. All are fine by me. Some rules are possibly stupid but not unreasonable.
And this hat rule and belt rule most definitely are.
These are the same golf courses that allow someone to drive their cart to the first tee with a dozen beers in a cooler but require me to keep my shirt tucked in while swinging my club.
You can get legally drunk for the next 18 holes but must conceal the bottom fringe of your shirt inside your pants, damn it!
So dumb.
People in favor of these arcane rules are losing, of course. Every year, these nonsense rules erode a little more. Standards are relaxed. Nprns are softened. Greater allowances are made. Some see this as an erosion of decency and decorum, but I see it as an erosion of illogical, unnecessary, and offensive rules designed to make people feel fancy and special for no earned reason.
They serve as barriers to the masses. Walls protecting the privileged from the plebians. Structures designed to make people in a certain income bracket feel a false sense of elitism, prestige, and nobility.
It’s all so dumb and elitist and illogical.
There is nothing inherently different, for example, between denim and khaki, except that denim was initially worn by people mining gold and silver, so it’s still perceived — more than 1o0 years later — as blue-collar.
Lower class.
Counter culture.
Unfit for fancy people in fancy places doing fancy things.
So stupid.
The day may come when I decide to join my friend’s golf club because I like playing golf and like playing golf with my friend. If and when that happens, I’ll be tucking my shirt into my pants and shorts when playing golf, and I will be very annoyed.
At least until I get the stupid rule changed.
It’s hard to imagine that many club members are married to this bit of stupidity. My friend is not. He hates the rule as much as me.
Most members probably hate it as much as I do and are simply unwilling to rock the boat by speaking up.
I never mind rocking the boat. I love rocking boats. Almost as much as I love playing golf.
