THE TRIM NEW LOOK OF GOLF
The Seminole in Palm Beach is a sea-grape-and-palm-framed golfing haven for board chairmen, millionaires, top-echelon amateurs and professionals—and the President of the United States. Its fairways are as well-manicured as most greens, its white sand traps are immaculately raked, its greens are like the baize of a billiard table and its ocean breezes and water hazards are spoilers of handicaps.
The Seminole pro-am invitational tournament each March attracts such a stylish turnout that it sets the fashion pace in the golfing world for the year to come. As shown in paintings done this winter, the Seminole look is a classic one with individualistic variations. Cashmere pullovers are back in style, replacing the baggy alpaca bell-sleeve cardigan long favored on the pro circuit. Lisle knit pullover shirts have loosely cut sleeves—and not a sign of a rampant Scotty or an emblazoned reptile. Slacks are in, Bermuda shorts are out, for men and women alike. There is a cool-day preference for flannels and corduroys, a hot-day inclination toward citrus-hued linens such as those worn by Club President Hunt T. Dickinson (above). Golf shoes are of highly polished black or brown calf, often with kiltie tongues. Seminolers add such personal touches as Fifi Fell's coconut hat, Chris Dunphy's Tyrolean and Natalie Cushing's short shorts to achieve golf's best Sporting Look.Meanwhile, the pros are on their annual winter migration from west to east, putting on the best-dressed show on the athletic road. For evidence, see the photographs from Palm Springs on page 32.
Gracie Ryan, Seminole women's champion, plays in pet faded-pink hat, mohair sweater, frontier pants. Husband Allan wears navy cashmere pullover, knit shirt, gray flannel slacks.
George Coleman, in worsted blazer with gold Seminole club buttons, gabardine slacks and lisle shirt, talks putters with Chris Dunphy. Chris, a favorite golfing partner of President Kennedy, sports his trademark Tyrolean hat with cable-knit turtleneck and corduroy slacks. At sea-breezy Seminole, women often wear colored linen, silk or cotton slacks. On a cool day, Mrs. Kimball Salisbury (below) teams flannels with camel's-hair cardigan.
Long-legged beauty, Mrs. Frederick Cushing (right), golfs in brief shorts, chevron-knit overblouse. Her husband and Freddie Melhado wear lisle shirts, colored linen slacks.
Three Seminole regulars, Tommy Shevlin and Jock and E. B. (Ned) McLean, wear cashmere V-neck pullovers and golf shirts in classic beige and gray. Both Shevlin and Ned McLean wear corduroy slacks, a new Palm Beach favorite, while Jock wears English flannels. The McLean brothers also have matching initialed golf carts.
Mrs. John R. Fell (right), another Presidential golfing partner and one noted for her distinctive flair for clothes, shades the Florida sun with a coconut straw hat secured under the chin by a pink chiffon scarf.
BLUE LADIES AND BUSINESSMEN
At Palm Springs a galaxy of pros and amateurs gathered for the 2nd Annual Palm Springs Golf Classic—a formidable round robin played over five green and well-watered oases in the desert: Thunder-bird, Indian Wells, Bermuda Dunes, Tamarisk and Eldorado, where ex-President and Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower are vacationing. The most refreshing sights in all that sunshine were the "blue ladies"—the women of each club who served as scorers, hostesses, phone operators and drivers of a fleet of white Thunderbirds on loan which had license plates such as GOLF 10. The hostesses all wore blue alpaca cardigans, white boaters with blue ribbons, white blouses and skirts, shorts or slacks. And a handsome lot they were.
The golfers themselves were as neatly dressed as the ladies. The mark of a top pro is no longer too much color and too much drape, but the same sort of good-looking clothes one sees at Seminole. The bulbous baseball-type golf cap is losing out to neater headgear. Cashmere is moving up on alpaca again, and in Palm Springs as well as in Palm Beach the bell-sleeve sweater has had a much-needed trimming. If anything, the pros—a group of serious businessmen in their white, gray, navy or black—have become a much more conservative lot than the amateurs.
Mrs. Ernie Dunlevie posts scores at Bermuda Dunes in official blue-ribboned boater, blue alpaca cardigan over white shirt and trimly tailored slacks.
Ken Venturi wears sweater he designed himself, a trimmed-down, buttoned-up version of the alpaca cardigan, with gray flannel slacks, white cap.
Bing Crosby, with Henry Higgins hat of cotton cord, madras slacks, has characteristic Crosby nonchalance.
Fred Wampler is as neat as a Tamarisk green in gray lisle shirt, flannel slacks, white linen cap.
SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS
HENRY KOEHLER
FOUR PHOTOS
FRED LYON