As golfers, there isn’t a day that goes by that we’re not inundated with the promise of improvement whether via a new club launch, training aid, fitness method, “a simple trick” or a one-swing “hack” to fix our slice and improve our on-course performance forever and ever, amen. Subscribing to the noise of these promises, you’d be led to believe we all belong on Tour.
But what about the equipment we wear—the great big world of performance apparel? Promises to enhance performance through a myriad of technologies and cutting-edge designs pepper nearly every product description, trying to persuade us that we’re just a $100 polo away from the best round of our lives. While there are undoubtedly benefits to the right equipment, both for our swings and for our bodies, it can be a minefield of features and benefits, the likes of which we seem to hear on repeat.
And while there is an exhaustive list of features we could walk through in performance apparel, we’re going to keep things high-level. We will focus on the ones we hear about the most to try to understand what they mean, evaluate claims of their virtues and report what each actually means to you, your comfort and, ultimately, your game.
Three is a Magic Number: Breathability, Moisture Wicking, Stretch
Apparel manufacturers, from the biggest global players to the tiniest upstart brands selling directly to the consumer, generally speak a lot of the same language. But if you peruse the product descriptions of brands across the world, you’ll see most claims generally center around three performance apparel characteristics: breathability, moisture wicking, stretch. Let’s start there.
Breathability
While this one’s relatively intuitive, there’s lots of room for interpretation. In the most general sense of the term, “breathability” refers to airflow. Does the shirt, short or pant allow air to flow freely to allow its wearer to stay cool and dry?
