I was in an Alma, Ark., pro shop a few years back waiting for a tornado to pass through (it had touched down about 15 miles away). While packed inside the shop, I figured I’d buy a hat sporting the local club’s name. I picked out what I thought was a good looking hat, albeit one of a dark orange color (some people might even refer to it as burnt orange.)
I paid for the hat and promptly began bending it into shape, placing it on my head. I squeezed back into my corner of the shop around my golfing partner for the scramble. We watched as the rain and hail slammed into the windows. We saw the strong winds rock the carts outside, joking about how you could probably drive any green on the course if you caught it just right. Of course, you could also have one come back and hit you, assuming a vortex hadn’t moved you to an unplayable lie.
A group of 20-something golfers were mingling in front of us. One of them reached for a similar hat to the one I had just purchased and said, in his 20-something voice to where everyone from Fort Smith to Forrest City could hear, “You’d have to be an idiot to wear this hat.” My buddy heard the same thing, and by the time he could rotate his eyes to me, I had grabbed the hat off of my head and slid it down to my side. The storm passed, but the course had been wrecked by water and debris, so the tournament was postponed.
The hat remains stuffed somewhere in the depths of my closet.
Which brings me to last weekend’s glorious Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park…
Yes, it is a time-honored tradition at big horse racing events for the women to wear large, gaudy headgear – very distant cousins to what we know as hats.
The tradition began, most believe, more than 250 years ago in the United Kingdom with the Royal Ascot horse race, where its code read, “…all guests within the Royal Enclosure adhere to a strict dress code: male attendees must wear full morning dress including a top hat, whilst ladies must not show midriffs and must wear hats.”
Some 20-something guy should have walked around the entrance of Oaklawn and muttered something similar to some of the women as he did in the pro shop that stormy summer day.
Some of the hats at the Arkansas Derby worked. I mean really worked. The Royal Ascot people would have been proud. There is nothing more elegant than a lady on Derby Day with an obvious sense of fashion.
Not included among those was the lady with the three very long pheasant feathers protruding directly backward from her headgear. While behind this person in a beverage line, you had to be quick on your feet if she made a sudden move as to not get your eye poked out by a quill. One thirsting for a beverage should not have to be concerned with getting his eye poked out by a dead pheasant feather. I know it’s written in the racing fans’ code of ethics, somewhere between not acting as if you’ve won every race with a “YEE HAW” and not reading your race day program on how to place a bet while at the teller window.
It also does not include guys wearing sport jackets with short pants and flip-flops. Do they even do that at Wimbledon? Each time I walked by this fellow en route to said teller or said beverage line, I wanted to ask if his mother knew how he was dressing in public.
Of course, men are just as ridiculous when it comes to sporting attire. Have you seen Ian Poulter’s outfits at a PGA event? He looks as if he just walked off the set of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. As for some of John Daly’s garb, WOW! Checkered pants in bright orange, yellow and green would not look good on Gisele, let alone Daly, who has a physique, not unlike my own, that does not need added attention drawn in his direction.
There are 51 weeks or so between now and the next Arkansas Derby. If you’re planning on making a fashion statement at the 2013 event, make sure exactly what kind of statement it is that you plan to make.