Scoff now, but it hit me like a ton of bricks last fall when I was browsing through L.A.'s headquarters for hepcats, Melrose Avenue. Standing in a vintage store admiring a $300 bowling shirt, I looked up and saw a sign. Not exactly a burning bush, but a painted-wooden placard adorned with the words "Golf Punk." My jaw dropped, all of those warehouse shows watching Black Flag and Anthrax flashed before my eyes in a second. I stumbled next door into a tiny boutique lined with baseball caps and windbreakers. First the Sex Pistols sell out, now this? Cheery fluorescent colors and floral prints, bouncing balls and grungy knit caps - all to tee off in. When did heroin go out and hole-in-ones come in? No safety pins or mohawks, just visors, sweatbands and shorts. Perhaps it was all just an elaborate inside joke, I thought. Then I heard a couple of dudes talking about some "bogus back nine" and I ran as fast as I could to get the first plane back to Philly. Months later I came across a flyer I'd pocketed from the store, a little lavender handbill adorned with a bubbly butterfly. Golf Punk indeed. In retrospect, it seemed like a bad nightmare, but I had to know for sure what the designers were thinking. "It's like preppie clothing with an edge," said Golf Punk's women's designer, Nicole Lemaitre. That summation sounded more like a Hollywood pitch line than an explanation for a clothing line. She might as well have said: "It's like Die Hard in space." Interestingly enough, 22-year-old Lemaitre isn't from L.A., but grew up just outside Philly on the conservative Main Line. That factoid fit perfectly into my conspiracy theory. Sure, she made a point of saying people on the Main Line are plenty stodgy, but that might have been just a clever charade to throw me off the track. Then I talked with Golf Punk's main dude, 33-year-old Chip Foster, a kind of guy who makes Pauly Shore seem uptight. "Hey, man? I'm making this stuff for a new breed of golfer," he said, yammering on about how cool it was that Tiger Woods won the Masters Open. It was hard not to be bowled over by his stokin' 'tude. "Right now I'm wearing one of our T-shirts that says 'Golf Sucks' even though golf doesn't suck but sometimes while you're playing it and you're frustrated you say it sucks, but it doesn't really." The Golf Punk clothing line was inspired by Foster's brother, Pepper, who loves the sport, but hates the conservative clothing. I'm with Pepper on that point, all of those old boys in golf shirts and visors look like chess club members dudded up for poker night. Now Golf Punk makes turtlenecks for snowboarders, surfer shorts and 40 different kinds of baseball caps. "I'll admit golf is hip and I'm glad to be riding the trend," says Foster. Hard to argue with that kind of unabashed entrepreneurism. Foster estimated last year's sales at well over half a million. He's even got one of his pieces on Beverly Hills 90210. Even though he seemed cool and his ideas rad, I still couldn't imagine digging golf or Foster's clothing. But then a brainstorm struck: I love miniature golf. What if someone created a golf line just for the pint-sized pastime? If Johnny Rotten can rake in the dough on a reunion tour, what's wrong with selling out the game that makes birthday parties great? I rang Bob Laun (pronounced "Lawn"), executive director of the Miniature Golf Association of America, he assured me that no clothing line existed for the sport - yet. I visited the Web site of miniature golf franchise Putt-Putt. All they had were novelty items: flippy flyers with their logo, pencils and a freakish doll that was supposed to look like a talking golf ball. Perhaps I could invent my own line. My fashions would be inactivewear with a historical perspective. Miniature golf was introduced in this country in the 1920s as a backyard alternative to golf for dawdling aristocrats. But the American twist, the obstacles - everything from windmills to ramps and secret passageways - were only added in the '50s. Miniature golf fashions should recall the dawn of the golden era: bowling shirts with buttons made out of windmills and a pocket just big enough for those game pencils. Fedora hats will suggest that "Dad on a Sunday Drive" look and enthusiasts will be expected to slide their scorecard in the grosgrain band similar to the way journalists used to wear their press cards. Flat-front chinos will be outfitted with a loop of fabric enabling you to store your putter when relaxing with a smoke. But there's no reason to stop there, why not make items for the whole breezy miniature golf lifestyle, including beer cozies, ashtrays and coasters. For the kids, I'll license out my logo to Baskin Robbins for miniature golf birthday cakes. Maybe Macintosh computers will make a special mini-golf-edition Thinkpad for businessmen programmed with a computer version of the game. Golf Punk gets up-and-coming golfers to wear their gear, maybe I could get that ultra-leisure man George Wendt to suit up in mine. Ah, Golf Punk just made me realize how the mainstream had homogenized punk by way of grunge a long time ago. So stay tuned for my answer to the Beastie Boys' X-LARGE clothing - MINIwear. |