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POULTER will keep trousers in check! |
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May 22, 2005; Source: AnyoneForTee Players form disciplinary committee to put an end to trouser excesses! |
UK. The growing trend among professional golfers, egged on by sponsors keen to sell their wares to amateurs wishing to look like their heroes, has led to the inevitable backlash from the more conservative elements on tour. Following revelations first published by AnyoneForTee about the possibly hazardous effects on the visual cortex of garish trousers [click here for our report - Ed], players' representatives from the European Tour, the Ladies European Tour, the PGA Tour and the LPGA met last week and formed a Committee to issue guidelines to their fellow professionals about what is and is not acceptable fashion on the golf course.Known as POULTER (Players Offended by Unusually Loud Trousers Encourage Restraint), the Committee will have the power first to warn, then to fine and ultimately to disqualify players whose dress is considered to be detrimental to their fellow pros.  "We had to take action," said European Tour Committee member Mark Roe, himself a victim of loud trousers when Jesper Parnevik's electric blue strides caused him to be disqualified from the 2003 Open Championship after signing a wrong scorecard [pictures left, click here for the full report - Ed]. "It's been getting out of hand. Some people will say that we're just killjoys, but they cannot deny the medical evidence. We recognise the need for colour and fashion on tour, but we have to think of the players', and the galleries' well-being. So from now on we shall quietly inform players who overstep the limit and ask them to tone it down. If they don't, we shall take formal disciplinary action. It's hard enough to concentrate on the course, without having your brain scrambled by your partner's kit."SQUINTS (Severe Queasiness Under the Influence of Nauseous Trouser Syndrome), an irritation of the visual cortex which causes spatial disorientation and, in extreme cases, nausea and vomiting, was recently identified by leading British eye surgeon Sir Ian Ball. Its effect on golfers has been traced back through many of the most famous golfing disasters, from Doug Sanders' missed putt in the 1970 Open Championship to the more recent incidents involving Roe in 2003 and Darren Clarke at the 2005 MCI Heritage.  "Colourful dressing was dismissed for years as a form of gamesmanship," said Roe. "Walter Hagen (right) was famous for his brightly coloured plus fours and tank tops and the two-tone shoes in the 1920s, when everyone else was wearing grey or brown. More recently we've had Tiger Woods and his red shirts on Sunday. But now we know that it is actually dangerous to be exposed to jazzy clothing for four to five hours at a stretch, so we've decided to do something about it."Of course, this is not just about trousers," explained Roe. "Any form of loud clothing can lead to an attack of the SQUINTS. In America, the problem is more about shirts, with the likes of Duffy Waldorf, Kenny Perry and Freddie Jacobson. Then with the women, you've got Jennifer Rosales and especially Christina Kim - she does shirts, trousers, hats... the lot. Not to mention the kit they gave the US Solheim Cup team! [See pictures below - Ed] |
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 "But you can't really blame them, when some of the tournament hosts are offenders themselves. The green jacket for the Masters is just about OK, if you like that sort of thing, but have you seen that jacket (left) they make the winner of the Colonial wear? It's painful to the eye! So we'll be having a word with them too." What criteria will be used to define "unnecessarily loud trousers", we asked him. Surely this is a very subjective matter and could lead to injustices being done. "Not at all," said Roe. "We will be totally objective. You've heard of the Stimpmeter of course, which the tours use to measure the speed of the greens? Well, with Professor Ball's help, we've developed the Squintmeter (right). It works by counting the number and intensity of the coloured pixels in an image. It looks a bit like a cross between a camera and a telescope. You simply look through it at a player, and if you can see him or her clearly, the clothing is OK. But if the image is out of focus, it means the machine has detected pixel overload and the clothing is hazardous to health. It's foolproof." |
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