Golfers shouldn’t have to choose between style and performance, but after playing a few sweat-soaked rounds on the big island of Hawai’i, Ralph Dunning couldn’t help but notice that his golf apparel was seriously lacking when compared to the gear he wore as a triathlete. Technical apparel already existed, but to Dunning, it appeared that golf hadn’t noticed yet. Since nobody was moving the game forward from an apparel point of view, the multi-talented Dunning did what every innovator does — he just did it himself.
When you heard the name “Dunning Golf”, Ralph wanted two things to come to mind: high-performance fabrics and timeless, sophisticated design. When the brand was founded in 2000, most golf brands were still making all of their apparel from cotton, sizing up their shirts and pants to make up for a lack of stretch, and, in many ways, foregoing performance considerations altogether. Dunning changed the entire scene by developing performance fabrics that looked good on and off the course, giving the modern golfer an outfit that wouldn’t leave them drenched in sweat at the end of a round. Over 20 years later, and Dunning is still doing its thing, utilizing the finest, most technologically advanced textiles to craft high-quality performance golf apparel.
Dunning’s apparel takes the guesswork out of getting dressed for a round of golf, making on-course and lifestyle apparel that has all of the classic style cues the game of golf is known for while incorporating the very best technical fabrics and technologies that exist in the apparel world today. Where most tech-heavy brands lean on crazy graphics, neon colorways, and out-of-the-box design choices, Dunning’s apparel is classy, easy-wearing, and timeless — perfect for the player who likes to let their swing do the talking.
Performance-Focused Classics
Dunning’s ethos is this: “Engineered for athletes, designed for players.” Their crack team of designers work in tandem with the creative team to develop clothes that, of course, look excellent on the course, but are also meticulously researched and crafted, starting with that very first fiber that goes into a pair of the brand’s fan-favorite Players shorts or their new Ventilated Polo, a polo that happens to be one of the brand’s most exciting new innovations.
When we asked Creative Director Omar Jermaine to give us the scoop on his current Dunning favorites, he went straight to their new ventilated mesh shirts, saying, “the overall star [of our apparel line] is the ventilated mesh. It is, bar none, one of the best things that we’ve developed. The playability, the comfort, the lightness, the actual weight of the goods…the way that we can print on it, we can do engineered stripes with it. I mean, we’re really playing with how many different ways we can actually engineer this ventilated mesh.”
