The process of dressing a Ryder Cup team has advanced rapidly over the past two decades. This year's European captain, Nick Faldo, was fully aware of the importance of finding the right blend of fashion, comfort and function in planning for the 37th Ryder Cup, as he was the victim of poor preparation on the apparel front as a player. Faldo remembers being supplied with team shirts that were too tight, too short and even sweaters with sleeves that were six inches too long, like the classic knitted Christmas jumper. He once took evasive action by going to one host club's pro shop to buy a jumper that actually fitted. The team jumpers were red and the closest Faldo could find in the shop was orange - so orange it was. That was a better solution to the English golfer than having to roll up his sleeves "so many times you'd end up with half a sheep at the end of your arm".
Joe Steranka, chief executive of the PGA of America, perhaps summed up best the top priority for Ryder Cup apparel in the Official Journal of the 37th Ryder Cup when he said: "When you're under the gun to hit the most intense, pressurised shot of [your] life, you don't want a hitch in your giddy-up."
With a view to ensuring there are no hitches in the golfers' giddy-up at all, the European Team's official clothing supplier since 1987, Glenmuir, began the process of fitting out Faldo's team 18 months prior to the first ball being struck at Valhalla.
Glenmuir went to such detail that every player was provided with a wardrobe book detailing the specific outfits and possible combinations for each of the six days of golf in Kentucky (three days of practice and three of competition), and even the caddies had their own wardrobe books too.
Indeed, the images of this year's collection on these pages - which we were strictly forbidden to publish prior to the clothes appearing at the Ryder Cup - had until now only ever appeared in the pages of Glenmuir's wardrobe books. Part of Glenmuir's Ryder Cup brief is to ensure the players see their Ryder Cup uniforms for the first time when they arrive at the team hotel, and not before. It is all designed to enhance the sense of occasion and team spirit.
"For this Ryder Cup we came up with three shirt designs for the players and one for the caddies, and there are about six sweater designs," explains Andy Bough, Glenmuir marketing director. "It is a whole collection in its own right and we treat it with that level of detail. Because it's the Ryder Cup and it's a small production run it gets possibly even more attention to detail that some of our other ranges."
The production process even involved the Glenmuir team jetting out to the Far East specifically on Ryder Cup business twice: once to hand-over the designs to the factory in person, and again when the production run began, to ensure the shirts and sweaters were being made to the exact specifications, as agreed between Glenmuir and Faldo. It is enlightening to learn that even 16 months before his European team was finalised, Faldo had it in his mind that his team would be youthful, and so he wanted apparel to match.
"When I first met Nick at the 2007 BMW Championship he said he expected the Ryder Cup team to be quite young," says Bough. "As a result he wanted a younger, more modern look for the European team to match the nature of the players. We delivered to that brief by using newer, more technical fabrics, combined with a very sports-fashion design look."
The double mercerised shirts and luxurious cashmere sweaters of Ryder Cups past were out, and in came zip necks, the Coolmax Active Performance fabric with its excellent moisture-wicking properties and UV protection, and sweaters made from a very light and breathable Pima Cotton.
"This year we tried to create something bold, athletic and the garments were cut to more of a performance fit," adds Bough. "We wanted something that was modern and fresh, yet classic and classy as well."
As far as the colour palette was concerned, Glenmuir succeeded in incorporating the established European colours of blue and gold with some modern and sophisticated shades of sand, grey, white and shades of blue ranging from ink to cobalt. It was undeniably a safe palette, with Faldo requesting a distinctive European team uniform, yet not one that would detract attention away from the golf itself. Memories of Ben Crenshaw's infamous US Sunday shirt from Brookline 1999 (left), a burgundy number adorned with portraits of winning US teams of the past, remain vivid in the minds of everyone who watched that famous day's golf, but not always for the right reasons. Some likened it to a pepperoni pizza at the time.
"I think everyone looks back at those Brookline shirts with a bit of a cringe quite frankly," says Bough. "Those shirts were over the top and there has been no thought within Glenmuir that anything like that would ever be appropriate for the European team."
American designer Jeff Rose, incidentally, created those Brookline shirts, after Crenshaw had asked him to come up with "something special" and "distinctive". The inspiration came from a similar shirt Rose had designed that Crenshaw wore on his way to victory in the 1995 US Masters. That shirt was decorated with images of Bobby Jones, the founding father of the Masters tournament. The Ryder Cup shirts may have been gaudy by design and overstated by thought, but the American team got wrapped up in an new intensity and spirit that day, as they claimed 81¼2 out of 12 singles points in those shirts, to stage the most remarkable come back in Ryder Cup history. The Masters and the Ryder Cup make a pretty impressive 2-0 record for the Jeff Rose portrait shirts.
For Glenmuir, it will be back to the drawing board once the European captain for the 2010 Ryder Cup has been announced, and the company will find ways of coping with the altogether more challenging climatic conditions of Newport, south Wales. Expect more layers.
Limited stocks of Glenmuir's 2008 European team collection will be available for purchase at http://www.rydercup.com/ and through Foremost/Alliance's Integrated marketing programme.
