29.7.10

SUPERMUM























What do you think happened to Supermum after her stunning victory in the Ricoh Womens British Open at Royal Lytham last year? Did Catriona Matthew find herself inundated by companies queuing up to be associated with a woman who had climbed to the summit of her sport just 11 weeks after giving birth?

Nope. The cap worn by the defending champion at Royal Birkdale this week will carry the name of the only sponsor who came forward after that memorable victory and even this deal is only for a fortnight.

Is this because no one watches womens golf? Or is it because Matthew doesn’t look as good in pink as Creamer?

I have to be honest, when following Catriona’s three ball, my eyes we’re mainly drawn to 21 year old, former England International Florentyna Parker. Does that make me a hypocrite and a dirty old man?

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28.7.10

GOLF-PLAYING MUSICIANS

Who is the best golf-playing musician I hear you shout; Alice Cooper or Justin Timberlake?

How about Lloyd Cole, from the hip mid-80’s band Lloyd Cole and the Commotions?

He began playing golf when his parents got a job at a golf course, and now plays off a five handicap.

Lloyd often plans his musical tours around a country's best golf courses.

“I wish I was massively popular everywhere but I’m especially grateful that I’m a bit popular in lots of different places, because travel has become part of my life. I have no problem travelling around the world singing my songs for the rest of my life, especially if there is a golf course near by.”
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27.7.10

BACK TO BLACK























After her enormous worldwide success with 'Back to Black', Amy Winehouse is taking to the fairways in an attempt to avoid the party scene whilst writing her new album.
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CUBE

Our next company vehicle the Nissan Cube.
Delivering organic golf shirts and the original black ball to your door.
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26.7.10

YOU CAN HELP TIGER



Some of you may know that Tiger’s been going through a difficult period.

Even though Tiger still heads the richest sporting list, a huge chunk of his wealth may soon be lost during the imminent divorce.

But alas you can still help Tiger’s demise, by simply donating just 10 dollars, you can help preserve the conservation of the Tiger.
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24.7.10

WORD ART

Wordle: golf refugees

Created by using Wordle.net
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WE'VE WON A BADGE

Online MBA












 


Our blog has won an award. Not sure how this happened, but cheers.
There must be a little old lady somewhere who accidently nominated us.
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23.7.10

USA WATCH THIS.



Newport, Wales is the host city to The Ryder Cup 2010.
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22.7.10

MAKE SOME NOISE

I have been reading reports, mainly fron the USA, that this year’s Open at St Andrews was a bit flat.

So how about ramping things up a bit for the Ryder Cup by handing out some vuvuzela's to the fans?

Now that Monty is Captain Marvel, I’m sure they would go down a hoot every time ‘Lefty’ and ‘Too much Wood’ missed a put.
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19.7.10

SEVE AND MAURICE


Love this picture. The facial expressions of Seve and Mauirce and their sense of fashion.
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16.7.10

MAURICE PLAYS THE OPEN, AGAIN.

Even though our golfing hero, Maurice Flitcroft was banned by the R&A for posting a record high score at the Open, Golf Refugees thought we’d enter him under the noses of the R&A geeks, at their Virtual Open competition, (http://www.opengolf.com/)

To avoid disqualification we used one of Maurice’s pseudonyms; James Beau Jolly. Off we trotted to the first tee. Now we all know that Maurice had a few problems controlling his sticks, well the virtual James Beau Jolly had a few problems controlling his mouse.

On the tricky 5th, four successive drives met unplayable lies. There’s a maximum of ten shots permitted before the game moves you to the next hole. James had a slightly better spell at the start of the back nine but again hit trouble on the notorious 17th ‘Road Hole’.

Posting a record score of 144 for eighteen holes, this left the computer no choice but to label James Beau Jolly as a ‘hack’. 

With the leading score in the clubhouse being an incredible 59, this left Maurice 85 shots behind after the first round and hoping for more favourable playing conditions.
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12.7.10

MAURICE ECO POLO

It’s time for The Open, the oldest and best golf tournament in the World.

For 2010 it’s back at the home of golf, St. Andrews.

Who can forget big John Daly lifting the claret jug, and simultaneously spitting on the hollowed ground. A truly memorable golfing moment from the last time the Open played the Old course.

To celebrate, Golf Refugees are paying tribute to our golfing hero, one of sports great underdogs, Maurice Flitcroft, who's biography ‘The Phantom of the Open’ is launched this week.

It's an hilarious tale of Maurice’s golfing exploits.

When qualifying for the Open, he posted the highest recorded tournament score. Embarrassed the R&A, who promptly banned him for life. Then spent the next 14 years defying their petulant ban by donning a series of disguises and pseudonyms to avoid detection and fulfil his love of playing the game.

You can join us with all manner of Flitcroft paraphernalia, from our new, special edition, Maurice eco polo shirt, t-shirts, Maurice button badges and the book itself. Just visit http://www.golf-refugees.com

There are numerous highly-paid, over-hyped sport stars to support. But Maurice was an ordinary guy, just like you and me. Not particularly blessed with natural talent, but with a strong desire and determination to achieve in his chosen sport of golf.

For that, we ask you to raise a glass (or jug) to salute a great British working class hero.
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9.7.10

TIGER TURMOIL


Should Tiger be wearing this great eco friendly Tiger turmoil shirt by Omunky during the Open next week, instead of his usual boring Nike sweatshop shirt
?
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8.7.10

WESTWOOD ON THE OPEN



That's great Lee, but how's the leg?
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3.7.10

MAKING THE CUT

After years of stuffy traditionalism, designers are finally tackling golf’s fashion handicap. Josh Sims looks at what’s now par for the course for CNBC magazine.

When professional golfer Ian Poulter, also known as “the man in the crazy trousers” for his fondness for a signature tartan, takes to wearing a bright-hued top trimmed with Swarovski crystals on the green, you can rest assured that golf is regaining a showmanship to overshadow even Tiger Woods’ antics.“It’s golf so we can get away with murder – and the customers love it,” says Lucia Cowan, creative head of Poulter’s golfwear design company, IJP Design. “A few years ago a lot of men wouldn’t even wear pink. Now many see golf as a way of wearing something bolder”.

Indeed, if the panache of golfers on the European Tour is anything to go by, the sport may be returning to its golden age of style, the 1950s, when Bob Hope would wear the loudest plaid trousers with matching sweater and cardigan, while Bing Crosby would team a cerise knotted shirt with pale green trousers. This was when Frank Sinatra would, along with golfers Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, create an on-course craze of ‘alpacas’ – baggy-sleeved, loose-fitting cardigans – with The Voice racking up a $30,000 yearly knitwear bill at the Palm Springs Canyon Club store. He preferred his alpaca in a searing orange.

Poulter, alongside Greg Norman, is one of the few pros to commercialise their distinctive styles but he is not alone in recognising golf’s earning potential as the world’s fastest-growing recreational sport, as well as the licence its eccentric conservatism gives to create more striking looks than might work at the office.

With golf relishing its newfound cool – the Beastie Boys and Samuel L. Jackson are obsessives; Justin Timberlake this year opens his own course and magazines such as Putt and Bogey have given the retired man’s obsession an edge – the big labels are piling into the market. Sports brands such as Puma and Nike, and ambassadors of high fashion such as Tommy Hilfiger, Dior, Hugo Boss, Zegna, J. Lindeberg, and most recently Dunhill, have all launched specialist golf lines.

“Golf is losing the traditional image that may have hampered it over the years,” says Carlos de Freitas, head of menswear at Dunhill, which even runs its own proam tournament, the Alfred Dunhill Links. “The clothing is certainly improving in line with that, harking back to times when golf style was more extravagant. Brands are picking up on those references."

In other words, it is now more of a streamlined and elegant Sean Connery in Goldfinger – even with Auric Goldfinger’s plus-fours – than the old khakis and shapeless polo shirts than has passed for golf attire over recent decades. Brands that originally kitted out the stars – the likes of Original Penguin, as worn by Hope and Crosby, or Lyle & Scott, 007’s choice – have relaunched more contemporary golf lines on the back of interest.

The clothes, often with wicking and stretch properties, are more technical than merely eye-watering casualwear. “That’s part of their appeal to a designer,” says De Freitas. “Golf clothing represents that point where performance clothing and the kind of thing you could wear everyday crosses over. Designers like to make products that have that purpose but also look great."

And not only that. “Yes, the latest golfwear has to be highly functional clothing, performing in different climates and offering ease of movement,” adds Cowan. “But it also has to meet all the clothing regulations.” It is perhaps here that golfwear is now at its most inventive. While that other middle-class sport, tennis, has relaxed its dress codes, golf is letting go only lightly: PGA rules stipulate ‘conservative dress’, while many courses still insist on a collared shirt and prohibit the wearing of shorts in competition.

That is only proving an incentive for some designers to push at the boundaries. Savile Row tailors William Hunt, which created Poulter’s famed Union Jack trousers, has what its founder, William Hunt, calls its “Philadelphian pimp style” for golf clothes, as seen in the amateur Trilby Tour it hosts. US brand Tattoo Golf offers what it calls “aggressive golf clothes” – essentially sober polo shirts bearing biker and pirate graphic motifs.

Wittier is Golf Refugees, a British brand that, while pushing environmentally aware kit and clothing for a sport with a poor environmental record – from Carbon Trust-certified tops to recyclable golf bags – also has polo shirts bearing faux club crests (look closely – the design says it all about the new generation golfer’s attitude to staid clubhouse etiquette) and trousers with a ‘cheat pocket’, with a slot through which to drop a ball down the trouser leg.

Some may think, after Mark Twain, that “golf is a good walk spoiled”, but at least the clothing is increasingly upping the ante. “The makeover is happening,” says Golf Refugees’ founder Peter Gorse. “The pros are dressing more distinctively now and clubs are aware of the need to attract new members, members who want to be able to wear what they want.”
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THE TRUMPSTER

I’ve just read that Donald the Trumpster has finally got planning permission for his massive golf course and hotel complex in Aberdeenshire. Billed as the best piece of land he’s ever seen. It’s going to be an exclusive resort for the well-heeled. Will it have big brash Trump signage, acting like a beacon, flashing across the pond enticing American's to unearth their Scottish heritage?

Golf Refugees would like to submit some architectural ideas for the Trump clubhouse. Using the trend of material ‘upcycle’ how about this superb building made from cleaned cargo containers? We love the bold colour too.
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