A Salute to a Style Icon

In the rush to erase golf clothing’s history of bad plaids and garish colors, today’s pro golfers have eagerly embraced the dull.

Then there was Payne Stewart, who blended the eccentric past with his unique style. The professional golfer’s untimely death Monday in a plane crash at age 42 also reminds us that icons, in sports or fashion, are products of their own persistence and daring.

Stewart could have been ridiculed for his plus fours, colorful knee socks and flat-billed caps. He could have taken the look to ridiculous extremes, dressing in period clothing or becoming to golf what Dennis Rodman was to basketball. But he knew whom and what to copy.

He recalled two men who defined golf’s golden era: Bobby Jones and the Duke of Windsor.

He mixed custom-made knickers with modern golf shirts, and topped them with a Scottish driving cap--more streamlined than the floppy, and foppish, tam-o’-shanter often associated with vintage golf clothing.

Yet unlike the legions who wear the Tiger Woods Nike swoosh or the Greg Norman shark and call it fashion, Stewart’s fans didn’t copy him. Perhaps they understood that style, after all, isn’t just what you wear. It’s who you are.