Golf is a game best played in a hat. The evidence for this can be seen on any golf course around the world. Golfers of both genders are generally hatted whilst playing this great game of ours. Commonly we see the baseball cap adapted in service to the 18-hole game. There are a few sombreros of other styles worn on the links, like the bucket hat, flat cap, and panama. In answer to the question why golfers never embraced the fez I posit that it is substantially a matter of the brim or lack thereof.

A Brimless Matter For Better or Worse

The hat on the golf course is for most a protection from the rays of the sun. Walking and stalking the links for upwards of 4 hours under the bright star, we call the sun, demands cover to avoid damage. Sunstroke and sunburn can be a golfer’s worst enemy. A fez will deter the sun’s rays from the top of one’s head but not the nose. Whereas a golfer’s adapted baseball cap has a long brim at the front. This, I think, is why golfers never embraced the fez. The fez lacks a brim for better or worse.

A Plethora of Fez Topped Golfers

If golf had of emerged from Turkey or Morocco, where the fez is thought to have begun its journey, we, perhaps, would have seen a plethora of fez topped golfers. A Mehmet Bey Junior wielding his hickory shafted mashie to broad appeal with red fez atop his head. A tarboosh graces the scone of the Turkish golfer from the pages of history. We see it flick the wind in the downswing, as the struck golf ball climbs high into the skies over a Constantinople fairway. Titleist and Callaway emblazoned across the front of our golfer’s fez, as he putts ball into hole on the green.

Could we glue on a brim to our fez? Could we adapt the fez to a globally warming planet? Would a fez still be a fez with a long front brim? Our noses would be covered from the sun’s rays and the great Turkish tradition of golf could continue. I can see you addressing your teed up golf ball and waggling the club. You bright red fez sits snugly upon your head and its long brim shades your aquiline nose. You think of pide and the Ottoman Empire. The tassel on your fez falls forward as you begin your pre-shot routine.