The author lives her color on the golf course.
You are an enigma walking Make no excuses for the way that you carry on And we can hardly believe it Words that flow from your mouth Drink like it's water, girl You're the most colorful thing that I've seen -Rocco DeLuca
When I play golf, the color of my ball must match the color of my shirt. It’s not an obsession. The lack of color coordination unbalances my mental equilibrium. That, more than muscle, drives my game.
Coupling the color of my ball with the color of my shirt means I have matching ensembles in fluorescent orange, hot pink, lemon yellow, lime green, purple, red and many other hues on the color wheel.
My one white shirt with cerulean blue piping pairs well enough with my TaylorMade 3. Its blue paint stroke designs make it as close to playing a white golf ball as I’ll get. For me, white balls offer no aesthetic appeal. They exude the bland personality of hard-boiled eggs that escaped the dye pot. My golfing buddies staunchly argue tradition overrides my colorful choices. Hmm.
Colored balls, on the other hand, nested in the rough or sitting proud on clipped putting greens remind me of bright Easter eggs, icons of my favorite holiday. I’ve also taken to anthropomorphically naming every ball and identifying it with an indelible black or blue Sharpie.
Gertrude, an intense orange-red Callaway, lasted three 9-hole rounds before drowning in a murky, duck-pocked water hazard. Natalie (pink) and Jerome (light green) didn’t even make it to the fifth tee.
Solid blue balls, with color values too close to grass, are difficult to find. Thus, I have only one blue ball named Walter, or Wally for short. Like a baby abandoned in a crib waiting to be played with, he sits with other balls in a plastic webbed container, inside my white Fiat 500X.
My red Clicgear pull cart, on the folded down seat, casts a shadow on this boxed rainbow gathering, all waiting to be selected based on the choice of my shirt that day. The pinks and oranges are taken out regularly while Wally, uncomplainingly, stays put.
I could take Wally out on a sunny afternoon, one bright enough to distinguish his covering from camouflaging blades, but he lacks a matching shirt. One Sunday when rain made it too wet to even practice under the covered driving range, for Wally’s sake, I set out to shore up my links wardrobe.
There is no nearby sporting goods store, so Amazon is the first stop on this fashion expedition. On my laptop I type in “Women’s Petite Golf Shirts,” hit enter and am taken to a flashy page showing the same woman photo shopped into an array of sport shirts. She poses slick-looking as the fabric she models, the same cast shadow on her forearm regardless of the lighting.
The shirts are priced, “On Sale,” starting at $12.99. What a deal! My three brand-named Nike, Puma, and Adidas shirts each cost nearly four times that. I’ve worn them for years and they are starting to show some wear. At that price I can retire all of them to the rag bag.
One shirt sports a tight pattern of blues, the same shade as Wally. I click on the “Buy” button in the checkout and am redirected to Temu, which I thought was the brand of shirt. The screen prompts me to type a billing address and credit card number already in that system. Maybe the account needs refreshing? I input the requested information. A banner flashes on the screen. Alerting me, oh no, “Only Two Left!” How many others are searching for an extra small blue golf shirt on a stormy Sunday afternoon? Maybe thousands. Hundreds of thousands! I act fast, hit “Buy Now.”
After clicking another key to seal the deal, a 20 percent off coupon pops up. Only $9.19 for a golf shirt! I’ll order one to see if it measures up to my quality expectations. At the checkout I’m told an additional 81 cents will be added to my order because it is under $10. Okay. I’ll just buy another shirt, of course doubling the cost. That’s when prudence pops up. If the shirts are so cheap, so must be the fabric they are cut from?
Earlier that week I watched a documentary about sweat shops in third-world countries. Footage showed mounds of cast-off clothing in junkyards. Women crammed into manufacturing spaces tight as the zippers they sewed into garments made to fall apart after the first washing.
Is Temu a brand of this exploitive fold of clothing manufacturers?
“What is Temu?” I type into the search bar. This directs me to a YouTube channel “The Stylish Sicilian,” a podcast. I learn Temu is not a brand but a distributor.
An advertisement precedes The Stylish Sicilian. In the advert a man brags how he retired on all the money he made by selling his books online. He promises he will show me how to make enough money selling my books to retire in luxury. Maybe bank enough to buy my own private golf course where wearing golf shirts is optional. Some months my own online book sale royalties don’t amount to the cost of a Temu golf shirt, even after applying the 20 percent coupon.
Before he can convince me to type in my credit card number I click the “Skip Ad” button and The Stylish Sicilian appears on the screen. Her name is Rosie. She reviews products and I was directed to her podcast about her recent Temu purchases. She has 1.98K subscribers and her podcasts garner up to 60,000 views.
Currently my YouTube channel has over 250-plus subscribers, and the podcast I did on pairing my golf balls and shirts got around 1200 views – numbers not reflective of an influencer.
My red Adidas shirt sports white side panels to create a slimming illusion. The purple Nike is a standard collared polo, and the sherbet orange Puma is a sleeveless number. Most likely, they were also sewn in a faraway factory. But they’ve held up better, I believe, than a $12.99 knock-off would. I’ve no way of comparing. I cancelled the order. Nobody will notice the polyester nubbins and runs as I trudge down the fairways, modeling what has been saved from the landfill for at least one more golf season.
Chasing down the sport shirt rabbit hole whet my appetite. I clear the search bar and enter, “Where are golf balls made?”
It is raining lightly the next morning. I shoulder into the Columbia jacket which I had purchased especially for league play at Bandon Dunes on a day when a Pacific Ocean gale blew strong enough to fill its pockets with rain. The jacket is nearly the same color as Wally. It is not a shirt, but it will have to do.
At the golf course I open the Fiat’s back door. Wally is nestled in with balls stored behind the passenger seat. Among the fluorescent green Titleist 1, deep red Callaway 4, lighter red Volvik 4 and generic yellow Kirkland Signature he is cool as an azure blue cucumber. CHAOS 2 is stamped on both sides of his dimpled face. A brand as new to me as the greens the blue ball has never encountered.
“Wally,” I say, plucking him from the box and rolling his roundness inside a rain jacket pocket long since dried out. “Let’s go.”
Minutes later, cupped into an orange martini tee the ball is nothing but complementary.
“Walter,” I address him properly behind my Cobra driver. “Today we will see what you are made of.”