Ian Poulter, the peacock of the men's tour, is moving into women's fashion at the behest of the Ladies Golf Union, who have asked his design company to come up with modern outfits for the Great Britain & Ireland team's biennial Curtis Cup match against the US at St Andrews next year.
"That will be happening," Poulter confirmed. "It's in the process and the girls back in the office are doing the designs right now. It's going to be good. It's nice to have a challenge to start up some ladies clothing as well."
He was coy about what they will be like. When the idea was first mooted this summer, Poulter said he wanted to move away from the traditional dowdy navy blue trousers and one-colour T-shirts and instead make the team members look "sporty, sexy and funky".
Since then he has consulted players and officials and, while he may be stopping short of turning the Old Course into a catwalk, the outfits are likely to be sharper in a move that he hopes will benefit his business just as much as it will the prospects of Curtis Cup success for GB&I, who have lost the last five encounters.
Poulter has played in both the Ryder Cup and Seve Trophy and knows what it's like to wear clothes that he wouldn't choose himself. He would like to see them less formal but, most importantly, he wants outfits that will make them feel at least as good as and preferably better than their opponents.
"If you feel good in what you wear it will help you win," said Poulter, a great admirer of the late Payne Stewart.
"If you are not comfortable in what you wear, then you are not going to perform well either on or off the course."
Poulter was talking at the launch in St Andrews of Pro Golf Secrets Revealed, by Stephen Govenlock, a book to which he has written the foreword recommending it to would-be professionals.
"I love clothes and that's part and parcel of me,"
he said. "I am just trying to express myself on the golf course. If that gets a following that's great, and if kids can relate to that even better."
Poulter believes both men's and women's golf fashion has moved up a notch in the last few years, but not to the level of the 1970s. "When I came out on tour in 2000 there wasn't as much fashion in golf as there was then," he said.
"If you look at pictures of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Doug Sanders & Co, they were wearing tartan trousers and bright colours and it was fun. Why can't we get back to how it was back then?"
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article